Ron's Worst Nightmares
by Pat Squared
Summary: Everyone believed the Ron Stoppable and Kim Possible were destined to become the perfect couple. Here is the real story of how these two ended up tying the knot.
1. The Hammer

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**The Hammer**

**By Pat Squared

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**

LEGAL DISCLAIMERS

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(1) This is a work of fan fiction. I do not own any of the character or the rights to KIM POSSIBLE. They belong to Disney.

(2) This is rated T (Provisionally) for some indirect sexual references and language that is unacceptable to the FCC.

(3) Thank you for wading through the legal bull. If you like what you read, PLEASE WRITE A REVIEW. Twenty seconds of your time can inspire a budding author to go the extra mile.

(4)If you expects a fluffy love story ... ain't gonna happen. Love is pain, enjoy it, understand it, or fate is gonna use the cat o'nine tails on your sorry rump.

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START OF STORY

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Ron Stoppable woke up smelling the rank odor of sweet, stale booze, and vomit. Two years of culinary school only made his nose more aware of the offending odors saturating the unfamiliar room.

Ron's right arm was numb as if the circulation was cut off, but his stomach and head told him that he celebrated way too hard last night.

Last night was the post-finals party for the quarter.

Unlike the dumb jocks with their _Paps_ or whatever cheap beer was on sale by the keg, the culinary art students tried to upscale their debauchery with expensive imported liquor (Even at wholesale prices) and high-end cuisine (Doesn't absorb any damn alcohol).

Last nights Bacchus Festaval started with the pre-dinner cocktail and ended ... somewhere.

The weight on his shoulder told Ron that he was not the only one who drank too much and crapped out on theliving room floor at the party. However, Ron was the only one under a blanket.

Ron peeked under the blanket. He was wearing ... nothing. The red-head clinging to his chest was wearing nothing either. His ... His thing was sticky with blood and semen and stuck to her flesh.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit ... I ... Kim ... no protection ... black hole – Mr. Dr. P. is gonna send me on the first availible pod to the nearest black hole..._

Ron had just managed to _effed_ up a fifteen year friendship with his _best friend_ last night.

Once they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Ron and Kim dated for a few weeks at the end of their junior year in high school, but it was weird for KP's sense of comfort.

Kim Possible broke off that particular aspect of their relationship back in senior year at Middleton saying that it felt like she was dating him was like a girl going out on play dates with her brother.

If Ron Stoppable was Roman Catholic, he would be ideal priest material. He seemed to be everyone's shoulder to cry upon, but no one would thing of him as a life partner.

Ron, being Ron, was hurt, but couldn't argue with her logic. He just mutely accepted the fact that she did not think of him _that way._

Even if he loved her and wanted to be her husband, he knew that he was not worthy of her.

She was Kim Possible, teen superhero, and he was ... the buffoon, the distraction.

Only Monkey Fist and Shego ever remembered his name or acknowledged his existance. To the other villains and fans of Team Possible, he was just comic relief while Kim defeated the bad guys and saved the day.

Kim was in a way the sister he never had. That was fate's decreed for Ron Stoppable.

So she went off and dated _Monkey Boy_, while Ron was stuck with Madam Palm and her five daughters as his lifetime mate.

Kimonly came with him because he needed a date to attend the dinner party. It was a _Just Pals_ diner date. Just some good food, a good glass of wine.

He never intended to ...

_Ron get a hold of yourself. It is not the end of the world. Maybe, Kim planned it. She poured the drinks for the both of us. May we can ..._

A dizziness spell andhis brain playing tom-toms in his skull cannedRon's line of thoughts and his hopes.

Ron closed his eyes hoping that maybe he would return back to his sleep and that this was just another sick dream.

_It couldn't be real. I am never this lucky. Kim never wanted me ... This way..._

Ron did the only thing he knew how to do. He merely hugged Kim and waited for fate to drop the hammer.


	2. Regrets and Decisions

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Regrets and Decisions**

**By Pat Squared

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**

"I _never_ want to see you ever again. I trusted you and you took advantage of me. It's O_ver_, Ron!" Kim Possible snarled the worst possible verdict as she gathered her clothes and stormed off to the nearest restroom.

Fifteen years of friendship ... all the times he stood by her side when the chips were down ... it was all over.

Ron knew that he should have been stronger. He should have not drunk so much last night. He should have turned down her advances. He was weak; pathetic ... he was worse than the villains he once chased. At least they were honest about being bad. He was...

Losing one's virginity was supposed to be a fond memory. Last night when Kim hit her climax, shescreamed out monkey boy's name and Ron deep in rutt only kept on thusting himself into her until he spent his seed. He kept on abusing his best friend's body.

Kim wouldn't send him to jail. Then word would get out and she would lose her place in the college _food chain_. The criminals would laugh at the once high and mighty Kim Possible being raped by the buffoon.

However, jail would have been a relief to Ron Stoppable at this moment. Rapists were only half a step above child molesters. Some _honest_ con would ensure that Ron would have died a fittingly brief, but painful death.

Ron gathered his clothing and got dress. He had taken Kim's trust, her friendship, and her virginity. The last image he had of Kim would be her naked, abused body.Ron's last memories of Kim would be the sound of her sobbing behind the bathroom door.

Ron walked to his dormitory room wondering how he was going to deal with his crimes.

The next week was proof that God hated him.

He was distracted with his guilt. Any situation he encountered, he only proceeded to make things worse.

Nothing he did since the _Day of Betrayal_ worked out.

He couldn't even properly toast a slice of bread without setting the toaster on fire, let alone cook anything edible. He could never return to cullinary school. His dreams of making Middleton, Colorado a cullinary capital belonged to a future that he forfeited along with his relationship to Kim Possible.

Ron tried to end it all on one night.

Drunk, he took the specially modifed scooter the he used on that fateful prom night and drove off a cliff. Instead of crashing into the rocks below,Ron fell untoone of the trees, totaled his faithful scooter and spent two days under observation in the hospital. The only good thing was that another link to his past was destroyed and that the cops _lost_ the blood alcohol test results. He didn't kill anyone or damage any private property, so they let him off this time.

Mrs. Dr. Possible treated him for his head injuries. She didn't know about the breakup and asked him why Kim has not been herself, lately.

Ron felt like a stepped on piece of dog turd for lying to a women he respected once as a second mother. However, he protected Kim's privacy the best he could. Dr. P knew that he was lying, but didn't press the issue to Ron's relief.

Ron could not return to chef school.

He could not bear to return to anything that reminded him of the trust he betrayed.

Ron Stoppable made the decision to forever leave his old life behind.

The choice was easy.

When he took Kim's virtue, he lost his right to be a force for justice. He would return the Lotus Blade to Yamanouchi Mountain before wandering the earth and seeking death, his salvation.


	3. Broken Spirit

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Broken Spirit**

**By Pat Squared

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**

"Yori-_ko_, Stoppable-san has been hurt."

Yori dropped her _tessen_, her iron combat fan.

"How?"

Master Sensei paused as if listening to the wind before he answered, "He lost his focus, Yori-_ko_. He lost his center. His spirit has been broken by an event that must happen … No one deserved it to happen ... Yet it did happen. Unfortunately Stoppable-san, not fate, must bear the pain."

Master Sensei knew that the fate would not be kind to anyone who was fated to bear the Lotus Blade. Yet someone honorable and steadfast must carry on the legacy – No matter what the price.

Master Sensei breathed in the scent of the miniature pines surrounding the Yamanouchi contemplation glade.

_Yori, I am sorry for what I must let happen. A father's is supposed to protect his child, yet I must let you be carried upon the cruel winds of fate._

Master Sensei knew that he was considered old by most people he encountered. He was in his late fifties when Yori was born. Now he was in his seventies. Before today, he did not think of himself as old. Today he felt everyone of his years.

Everything happened as Master Sensei's visions predicted down to Stoppable-san's loud orange and white Hawaiian shirt. Ron simply walked up the trail and fell upon his knees in front of his former teacher.

Stoppable-san's Japanese was flawless as if he practiced these words all his life.

"I am unworthy to be entrusted with the honor of the Yamanouchi clan. Please take the Lotus Blade and hand it to someone more worthy than one who betrayed the trust of the ones he loved."

Stoppable-san would not face anyone. The resilient spirit of the one who could rebound from anything was gone ... replaced by defeat and the cancer that ate his soul called guilt.

Master Sensei looked upon Stoppable-san. He had to figure out how to patch up Stoppable-san's broken soul.


	4. Midnight Confessions

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Midnight Confessions**

**By Pat Squared

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**

Yori could not believe that the blond-haired, freckled face creature before her was her friend Ron Stoppable.

The happy-go-lucky, resilient personality was replaced by something that she would forever remember with great sadness. It was as if someone sucked out Ron's spirit.

The soft brown eyes she remembered were marred by guilt and self-loathing.

_It's true that no one can punish you as hard as yourself._

Yori hated this new enemy.

If the enemy was flesh and blood, Stoppable-san was skilled enough to defeat it, even if he freaked out and ran around wailing with arms failing. Yori would have sliced it to shreds with her iron bladed fan. However, the enemy lived inside her friend's mind. It would hurt him in a way that not even the he loved ever could.

Yori looked into her father's eyes. Master Sensei returned the look and performed the slightest of nods.

_Ron grew up and lost his child-like innocence. The world has truly lost something precious._

Yori knew that she would have only one chance at getting to the truth.

She had to get Ron to open up, share his burden.

Yoriwas not a head shrink. She did not have the type of personality that people turned to. However, Ron needed someone to understand, to teach him that he was not alone, that there was always forgiveness.

Therefore Yori had to use one of the ancient of interrogation techniques - Sake.

It took a lot of sake before Ron would speak of his shame. He gave his heart to that redheaded bitch and the bitch destroyed him.

Ron loved someone who did not return his love. All his life, he was torn apart from those he loved.

That night Yori was exposed to secrets Ron would never share with another soul.

Ron's real name was Vasilii Boiarskii. The name changed occured when he was adopted.

He was an outcast, a bastard child of an ethnic German family living in Estonia. His family was lower than the sewer workers, for they were employable by the state.

His first memory was his mother being executed by a big man in a uniform because his father was some kind of American spy. His grandmother was sent to the gulag. He and his sister lost their status as children became property.

He was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and rejected by his father's politically connected family.

He was forced to become a replacement child for the Stoppable family whose real son Ron died in a pool accident.

He was selected, save from a slow death by neglect and physical about, because he looked like their dead son.

His younger sister ... Anastasia ... was not selected. A few years ago, he found out she died not long after he was selected from being beaten and starved by the orphanage staff.

Roncould not protect his sister as he promised her.

Every female he loved was taken away.

His mother, his sister ... Kim ... Kim was his only chance at salvation and she discarded him like a john discards a used condom.

He was routinely beaten because he was not really the Ron Stoppable that Mrs. Stoppable gave birth to twenty years ago. Mrs. Stoppable would tell him that she hated him because he was not her real son.

Not even when he risked his life or even when he paid off the Stoppable family's mortgage and debts with the Naco royalties, did the Stoppable family appreciate Ron.

No one did. Outcast was Ron's middle name. He was cursed by fate to be unwanted, rejected every time he tried to claim the love that he deserved as a member of the human race.

Yori loved a man whose heart was torn by rejection and guilt.

Yori cursed the gods of fate and love.

Yori loved Ron.

She yerned to be Ron's wife, his life partner ... However to do so would be an injustice. He did not love her _that way_.To force him to love herwould destroy him until he would no longer be the Ron she loved. He would grow to resent her and Yori could not live with herself if that ever happened.

Ron loved Kim. Kim had to be a bitch. Kim could not even appreciate the fact that she had a friend who would catch a bullet for her.

Yori did not plan for the talk to become something more than an outpouring of the soul. However, her anger at the red head bitch pushed her to do something she did not plan to do. She surrendered her virtue to a man who was crumbling inside.

Despite the drink, Ron was gentle. Ron bring forth the thunder and the rain. Ron share with her a moment that she knew would never be repeated. When Ron share his essence with her, Yori did not care about the consequences. Even if he gave her a child, Yori would still love Ron. There would alway be a place in her heart and her bed for Ron.

Afterwards Yori looked on as Ron as he whimpered in his sleep... begging for forgiveness. He was haunted by all his failures ...

_It was not his fault. Kim destroyed him in little bits everyday._

_Kim Possible, the oh so perfect teen superhero, was so busy saving the world that she let her comrade damn himself to a lifetime of pain. Ron surrendered everything and how did queen bitch repay him..._

Ron was kind, caring, gentle, loyal ... everything a woman could desire. Everything that he shared with Yori for that one night, the queen bitch had it all on a golden platter and threw it all away. The bitch threw away everything for which Yori would sell her soul.

Yori had Ron for one night.

Sadden by the fact that she could not be his salvation, Yori slipped away before Ron would awake. She would tell him that it all was a dream. She would keep tonight's event a secret even from him.

Yori wept as she snuck back to her quarters. The only sounds that registered in her mind were her sobs and the chirping of the crickets. She wanted to keep Ron, but Ron had to be let free to seek the happiness that eluded him.


	5. Focus Lessons

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Focus Lessons**

**By Pat Squared

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**

Ron knew that he was being buried by an avalanche of his shortcomings.

For the past two weeks, he had been hiding from the world and his guilt at Yamanouchi Mountain. There was more than enough physical training to sate the appetite of any gung-ho US Marine Corps drill instructor.

_Hell, the DI in Full Metal Jacket would have a stiffy at the thought of just watching the warm-up sessions._

However, it was Yori and the lesions in meditation, that Ron appreciated and hated the most. The _Ron man_ was all about the action. His video games and missions were all 'bout running around saving the world/kingdom/princess/whatever.

However, he never had to save himself from his own thoughts. Ron lost count of how many times Yori smacked him in the head with the wooden sword to awaken him every time he fell asleep from boredom during the mediation training.

For the hundredth time this night, Ron focused on the candle flame. His hands were on his lap. With a flick of the wrist, Yori made the candle swing.

_Focus Ron, clear your mind ..._

_Focus on the task ..._

_Inhale ... Hold ... Exhale ..._

The candle swung on its path.

_Don't concentrate too hard ..._

_You are the surfer ..._

_The wave of time may move you, but you determine how you ride the break._

Instinctively Ron knew it was the moment. He threw the dart.

He completely missed the candle.

"You concentrated too hard. It's like touch typing. You don't have to remember where the keys are, but your fingers remember."

Ron never wanted to throw in the towel.

_You are a failure. What made you believe that if you tried hard enough that everything will work out for the best?_

_Didn't your life teach you anything? You were a born a failure? Your life was nothing but a series of failures. You have let down everyone who depended upon you. Now you are wasting Yori's time. Why does she insist on being my friend? Why doesn't she know that she will be hurt, just like mom, Anastasia, Kim?_

"Ron, I know that look. I am not going to let you quit."

_Christ, she is more _determined_ than Kim_.

Yori merely handed him a warm bottle of sake.

"Drink it all. Then we try again."

Yori smiled an eerily familiar smile as Ron drank down the bottle.

"Not enough. Here is another."

Ron drank down another winching at the thought of enduring another hangover during tomorrow's warm-up session.

"Repeat. Every time you fail, you will drink another bottle and we will simply repeat until you die from alcohol poisoning or you succeed.

Ron groaned in misery as he missed the candle again.


	6. Letting Go

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Letting Go**

**By Pat Squared**

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Yori knew that Ron Stoppable would forever walk out of her life today.

Ron Stoppable mastered everything that she could teach him, everything but to accept the fact that he was not some subhuman monster.

Before meetingRon, Yori would have believed that she was happy when she would marry whomever the clan dictated. With Ron, Yori learned that life was more than conforming to others' expectations. That sometimes rebellion is the only way to live and that being yourself is the only way to stand for anything worth living for.

_Never be normal_. Yori vowed to forever live by those words.

If Ron was normal just like everyone else, Yori would have never known what life and love really was meant to be.

Now he was leaving her.

She ran out of things to show him, things to ensure that she could spend another night in his embrace.

No matter how physically tired or drunk, Ron was learning how to tap into his mystical monkey powers. In combat, he did not have to think, just let himself act.

Ron was far beyond her skills. Yori was still learning the intricacies of Tang Shing Pek Kwar and would be learning it all her life. However, Ron just had to tap the skills running through his blood.

The Yamanouchi ninja school could not distract Ron from the memories that haunted him much longer. It was time for Ron to return back to the real world.

Yori wonder if Ron would ever find his salvation.


	7. Kim's Withdrawal

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Kim's Withdrawal**

**By Pat Squared

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**Dr. Anne Possible watched her daughter whimper in her sleep.

Things went to hell. Ron Stoppable disappeared and Kim spent every night whimpering in her sleep.

No one knew where Ron Stoppable went.

One day Rufus, Ron's pink naked mole rat was waiting on the front step with two letters. The one addressed to the Possible family simply asked that the twins would take care of Rufus and let him have a naco and a Bueno sized Coca-Cola once in a while. The other was addressed to Kim.

It took some doing, but Mrs. Dr. P. reassembled the scraps of the letter. It read:

_Kim,_

_I have failed at everything worth having in my life. I have failed everyone who depended upon me._

_I cannot undo what I have done. I will go to my grave knowing that when you needed me to be your friend, I did not step up to the plate._

_I do not expect your forgiveness. Even if you do, I cannot forgive myself for I have crossed the line._

_Don't bother look for me. I don't know yet if I decide to live in the shadows or end it all. Either way, it's best if I simply disappear forever._

_Ron._

It was ripped into tiny pieces and the ink was runny. From whose tears, Dr. Possible would never know. The letter was a suicide note from a spirit already dead.

Not enough the breakup during the kid's senior year caused this much pain.

Kim was retreating from the world. She broke up with her boyfriend, John ... Josh Mankey.Kim took an extended leave from her crime fighting career. Dr. Possible was happy in a way. Kim's mind was incapable of maintaining the focus necessary to survive. Her last mission was such a close call and Kim require some stiches.

However, it was unlike Kim to not go to the mall, especially when Club Banana was holding its annual sale.

The once bash teen superhero now became a recluse scared to set foot in the outside world.

Dr. Anne Possible could excise any brain tumor, identify any known neurological disorder, or bring back patients from the deepest of comas. However, she could not fix the broken spirit of her little girl.


	8. Uncle Sam's Misguided Child

**Ron's Worst Nightmare**

**Uncle Sam's Misguided Child**

**By Pat Squared

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**Vasilii Boiarskii maintained the position of attention while Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Honeycomb shouted in Vasilii's face and covering it in spittle.

Ron Stoppable looked for death. Perhaps he could find forgiveness in martyrdom and the Marine Corps had many promising opportunities for anyone who wished to a make their death mean something. So Ron enlisted to asix-year tour using the name his real mother gave him at birth.

The background investigation officer was a little miffed that he did not simply use the same name that his school records used, but the facts did check out and his reasons were legal enough. The recruiter was happy because Ron Stoppable filled up the recruiter's quota for ground grunts for the month.

However, the DI's at Camp Pendleton instinctively knew the Boiarskii was bad news.

"Boiarskii, you are the densest, dumbest, most forgetful magget that I have the displeasure of encountering in my sixteen years in God's beloved Corp. I though that all you big-eared elephants are suppose to have perfect memories. You ain't suppose to forget shit.Yet you can seem to remember that this is a live fire exercise. Do you have a death wish, maggot?"

"Sir, no, sir!" Stoppable lied.

"Then why did your moronic brain come up with the idiotic ideal to move forward of the skirmish line into the forbidden zone? Do you understand what 55 grains of copper clad lead does to a brain at thirty two hundred feet per second maggot?"

"Sir, no excuse, sir."

Stoppable knew that the Marine Corps did not care for any excuses. You followed procedureoryoudid not follow procedure and got your ass chewed out.

Today was the last day of the Crucible. Over forty eight hours of continuous simulated combat operations and Gunnery Sergeant Honeycomb still was ridding his ass.

Honeycomb trained his Marines to come back home in one piece after the mission. Ron had no home to return to. Too bad he could not tell Honeycomb that Ron planned to not live long enough to worry about reinlistment.

"Drop down and give me a hundred, Boiarskii!"

DI Honeycomb shook his head and proceeded to chew out the recruit chosen to lead Ron's squad as Ron started doing one hundred, four-count, push-ups.

Lieutenant Castillo, US Naval Bureau of Medicine, looked on the next batch of recruits to john the Green Machine. The Marine Corps training program was legendary for its physical and mental demands upon its recruits. Some recruits failed the program for physical reasons, but others could not handle the mental strain. For that reason, the Marine Corps brought in psychologists from the Naval Bureau of Medicine.

Boiarskii was one of the recruits that fascinated Lieutenant Castillo. Boiarskii had the markings of a great marine. Always faithful to the well being of his comrades, always first to volunteer for anything dangerous, always pushing no matter how tire or injured, erring on the side of aggressiveness – Boiarskii made the Duke look like a sniveling coward.

Castillo read the complete background file on Boiarskii. In it was more than enough cause for any compotent psychologist too start worrying. Since then, Castillo kept an extra close eye on Boiarskii.

Like many recruits, Boiarskii joined the Corps to run away from a painful past. He joined seeking a family - a family and a sense of purpose. However, unlike the others,Vasilii was border-line suicidal.

Worse, Boiarskii did not think in terms of right and wrong but in terms of protecting the group. He was a guardian mentality who conscience was limited to his dealing with those he perceived as kindred spirits. If anything threaten Boiarskii's group, Boiarskii would not let the minor things, _like the rules of war and the Geneva Convention_, stop him from lashing out at the threat.

The Corps was the end of the line for Boiarskii. If Castillo had him thrown out on a medical discharge for psychological reasons, nothing would hold Boiarskii inner monster in check. All Castillo could really do was watch Boiarskii deal with his inner demons.

Beside Boiarskii ranked number one in his boot company. Getting rid of the number one recruit would hurt Lieutenant Castillo's ability to work with the DI's at Camp Pendleton. Boiarskii was not the only ticking time bomb undergoing basic training.

Castillo could only hope that Boiarskii would be able to control his inner demons.


	9. Little Blue Cross

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Kim's Breakdown**

**By Pat Squared

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**Kim Possible stared at the little blue cross.

_It could not be right. The little blue cross must mean negative. I can't be ... pregnant._

However the directions on the back of the box emphatically meant that Kim Possible was pregnant.

She however did not want to believe it.

She couldn't be. It was just that one time and she could not remember anything between the third shot of currant flavored vodka and the moment she woke up naked under the blanket with her former best friend.

_It shouldn't count. He raped me._

However, the little blue cross told her that it did.

Two missed periods, she could blame her new birth control pills.

Her clothes getting tighter, she just wore looser clothes pray that it was her getting fat.

Her throwing up in the mornings, she could chalk it up to her cooking.

Her mood swings, she was still traumatized by Ron's _betrayal_.

However, Kim could not deny the little blue cross.

_It was his fault. It was Ron fault that I am knocked-up._

Kim could not run away from the facts anymore. She had to 'fess up at least to her mother. She hated Ron. She hated the baby growing inside of her. She hated herself most of all for getting into this stich.


	10. Shifting Sands

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Shifting Sands**

**By Pat Squared

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**WARNING: NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT!

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Vasilii hated the sand. No matter what he did, the talc like substance worked its way into his clothing, his food, his water, and his gear.

He hated Sudan, its endless supply of sand, and playing the role of peacekeeper between a bunch of people fighting over which god to pray to. In Iraq and Afghanistan, at least the Marines got to vent steam by shooting some idiot insurgent who sought martyrdom. All Vasilii did in Sudan was patrol a stretch of road and ensure that no one left a mine or improvised explosive device the previous night.

Being fresh meat straight from the land of the Big PX and the latest 1371 or combat engineer meant that it was Vasilii's job to find landmines or improvised explosive devices, get close enough mark its location, notify his squad leader, Sergeant Seymour Jackson, so that he would call it in, and nine times out of ten he was volunteered to defuse or detonate the device in place. Unlike the other combat engineers, Vasilii actually looked forward to defusing the explosive devices.It meant the he would have to walk up right on it and maybe, just maybe, it would forever end his pain.

Vasilii's old life as Ron Stoppable in the land of nacos and Bueno-sized Coca-colas was fading out of his memory. He got good at it. Sometimes he would go more than seventeen hours without remembering why he ran away. It was so easy where everyone was so dark that Wade and Monique looked white.

Everyone here knew him as Vasilii, V, or more often as _Dumbo_ for his outsized ears. Ten days in country and all he now dreamt about was leaving this sand and insect infected land. Even four years of alcohol and frozen meat pies in the Artic guarding an igloo seemed like paradise. He lost count of the inflamed sores that resulted from scratching them in his sleep.

Vasilii lugged about his M25 USMC Designated Marksman Rifle. As _fresh meat_,Vasilii was assigned to carry the eleven pound beast with the kick of a pissed off mule, while the rest of the guys carried a six pound M4 Carbine. He was also stuck carrying any extra gear that Sergeant Jackson could think of.

Vasilii scanned the road ahead with the _field glasses_, not binoculars (the Corps frown on civilian-speak), looking for any signs of disturbed earth. All sides were violating the truce and it was Vasilii's job to get rid of the evidence before the evidence killed someone and the war flares up again in time for the six o'clock news and sweeps week.

Along the road was the usual assortment of wildlife. Mothers with baskets on their head carrying new born babes in a sling and burnt out old farmhands hiking off to work were clogging the dirt path that the map called a road.

Armed militiamen and boys swaggering with their AK-47's safe in the fact that unless they fired first at the peacekeepers, the peacekeepers would not do shit to stop the violence.

_Everyone can afford a fully loaded AK and two belts of 7.62x39 mm Soviet, but no one can afford to feed their family. Ten days and I already hate these ... creatures._

Before Vasilii could not understand why racism is so attractive to so many people. Now he found himself thinking of the victims of this war as less than human.

At timesVasilii could not resist contemplating ending the suffering one bullet at a time. If he could just perform summary executions on the warlords, maybe he could stem the bloodshed. It was all they understood, one hundred twenty grains of 7.62x39mm Soviet at twenty three hundred feet per second through the appropriate cranial cavity.

In ten days, he had seen villainy that made Drakken's dreams of world domination look so _innocent_, so _child-like_. He had lost count of how many fat hyenas were feasting on the remnants of what was once a human being.

All Vasilii could ever do was to ensure that none of his fellow Marines were injured by roadside improvised explosive devices. He literally double-checked each and every rock and pebble on his section of the route.

Soon the foot traffic would be thinning out. It was perversely more dangerous since the natives seemed to be better at sniffing out roadside booby traps than the dogs flow in from Eglin Air Force Base. They instinctively would avoid the devices and that would alert the road clearing team.

"Dumbo, get the sand out of your ass, you are going to do a walk about. Gonzo will be your den mother."

Vasilii hated Sergeant Jackson's _walkabouts_ the most. While everyone else enjoyed a seat in the HUMVEE, he would have to hump sixty pounds of gears looking for trouble before trouble found him. Gonzo, or Gonzalo Cortez was the unlucky marine assigned this time to cover Vasilii as Vasilii looked for landmines and other booby traps. He would be hauling the M-249 SAW and lay down cover fire the instant anything went wrong.

Being on the _shit detail_ saved Vasilii's life.

Twenty minutes later, Vasilii was knocked to the ground by a concussion wave. The training kicked in and he moved away form the blast.

Cortez was down, his brains exposed to the world. The squad – some punk with an RPG took out the ride.

Vasilii was alone in a land were everyone hated the Marines. All sides were unhappy about the occupation. In that they were all united. It was all a matter finding out who did the hit and making it back to HQ to deliver the news.

He rolled into a nearby gully and watched as the hyenas feast on the remains of his former squad mates.


	11. Long Hunt

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Long Hunt**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

* * *

The hyenas scampered when the local militia approached the flaming wreck of the HUMVEE. Themilitiamenwere all laughing as if the deaths of Ron's squad mates were punch-lines to the jokes in the latest episode of _Friends_ or _Seinfeld_.

Vasilii watched as they kicked whatever the hyenas left of Gonzo. One of them picked up Gonzo'sFabrique Nationale M249 Squad Automatic Weaponas another hacked at Gonzo's corpse with a machete. They had laughed and danced in glee as Vasilii slowly shouldered his rifle.

Twenty,175-grain, M118LR 7.62x51mm NATO match grade rounds sat ineach one of Vasilii's magazine plus one in the chamber – twelve targets, by Vasilii's calculation he had nine extra rounds to go before he had to reload. If he had to reload, he would be dead.

Now was the moment. The hunters would become his prey.

One was doing some kind of warrior dance. Vasilii picked this one as his first example. As they trained him, Vasilii moved into the USMC approved prone position as if he was on the K-D (known distance) range at San Diego.The sling was wraped about his left forearm. His body became a bridge of bone. Ron started breathing as he placed the crosshairs on his target's head.

Vasilii squeezed the trigger. All it took was four minute muscles exerting three and a half pounds of pressure.

The match grade trigger released a hammer that stuck the firing pin which then struck the match grade primer which then ignited the powder. The bullet exited with a muzzle velocity of twenty five hundred feet per second, traveled one hundred twenty three meters, penetrates a layer of skin and bone before entering the fluid rich cranial cavity. Hydrostatic shock turned a human life into an object lesson and turn skull and brain fragments into a pink and grey mist.

Training and rage turned Vasilii into death incarnate. He was dealing out tickets to the afterlife like a Vegas blackjack dealers dishing out cards.

The rifle that Vasilii cursed this morning was now his best friend. He quickly lined up the crosshairs with the heads of the militiamen.

Some were waving their AK's around returning fire while other's scrambled for cover.

Vasilii aimed at the runners first. He knew that it was bad tactics, but he did not want anyone responsible for the deaths of his squadmates to live.

Part of Vasilii's minds regretted not having enough object lessons to show the world that you don't fuck with Uncle Sam's Misguided Children. The local militiaterrorized their people into submission. Now it was his turn to show them that the real face of terror is a pissed off marine with an accuraterifle and plenty of ammunition.

Vasilii's mind did not record the sound of the shots, just the images of his foe's faces erupting into mist and the satisfying kick of his instrument of justice.

_The old Ron Stoppable would have ..._

Vasilii stopped listening to the old Ron Stoppable.

Ronald DeanStoppablewas the slave mentality that kept him down. The old Ron Stoppable was one step away from eating a bullet. Ron Stoppable was the pitiful fool would tried to off himself when the red head bitch tossed him away.

War already taught Vasilii Boiarskii that he had something to live for. Vasilii belonged her. Vasilii lived for the thrill of the kill. No longer will he play by any rules save for the rule of the jungle.

Vasilii walked to the cluster of the dead and dying to survey the executions that he performed. His veins were throbbing with life, a pleasure greater than any other he could ever remember.

He heard a groan. One of the bastards did not die quick enough to avoid seeing more of Vasilii's justice. Hatred kept him from questioning what he was going to do next. Vasilii gave into his hatred.

Ron Stoppable came to with bloody hands and a bloody K-Bar knife.

Ronhad truly divorced himself from the human race.

Ron let Vasiliisend a young man on an extremely painful, one-way trip to the afterlife.Vasilii had laughed and spat in the face of his dying victim. He had enjoyed the man's suffering. He had become one of them.

Ron Stoppable gathered his weapons and made his way off the road.

No one would understand the emotions that ran through his mind, let alone Ron.Vasilii, Ron's dark sidewanted to disappear to go on the long hunt and dispense justice one round at a time. Ron wanted to put the muzzle of his rifle in his mouth and end the guilt.

However,Ron vowed to walk back to Headquarters before deciding what he would do next with his sorry excuse for a life. He had that final duty. He had to let his squad-mates' families know that that the killers paid for their crimes.


	12. Notice

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Notice**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

"Mom, come here," Jim yelled, "It's the Marines."

Dr. Anne Possible came down the steps.

"Show the men in. Then take Tim and play outside. No rockets, no explosions, or else."

"Oh mom..."

"Go!"

There were three of them in Marine Corps dress blue uniforms plus a guy dressed in a dark blue navy uniform. Two of the marines were wearing stripes while the other had two silver bars on each one of his shoulders.

"Mrs. Possible, I am Captain Renyard of the Judge Advocate General's Office."

"It's Dr. Possible," Mrs. Possible responded automatically, "I did not graduate med school to be call Misses."

"Sorry ma'am. I am here to inform you that as of December 25, 2010, that your friend, Private Vasilii Boiarskii is missing in action and presumed dead."

Dr. Possible looked at the men weirdly.

"Captain, I don't know what to say to you ..."

"Please listen, Staff Sergeant Munoz and Corporal Taylor is here to walk you through the legal paperwork and explain to you all the beneifts. Father Rideau, a US Navy Chaplain, is here if you need a grief counselor and will help you coordinate any memorial services."

"But ..."

"I know that the death of a close friend may be."

Dr. Possible turned red in the face and yelled at the officers.

"Captain ... shut up. I do not know anyone who is currently in the Marine Corps. I do not know anyone named Vasilii Boiarskii. You got the wrong address... Typical military imbeciles wasting you time and my tax dollars."

The stress of dealing with a single pregnant daughter with wild mood swings took its toll and now it was Dr. P's turn to vent.

It took five minutes of Dr. Possible swearing up a storm, before Staff Sergeant Munoz summoned up any courage. He quickly looked down at his clipboard and pulled out a letter. The captain was being battered by a petite redhead.

"Ma'am, Private Boiarskii listed your name as his next of kin and as the beneficiary of his GI insurance. I have the originals if you care to check. Also, he had left a just in case letter among his gear. It is addressed to you."

Munoz handed her the letter.

Dr. Anne Possible opened the letter and started reading:

_Dear Mrs. Dr. P,_

_I wish that I was the fly on the wall when the notification committee paid you a visit. I hope that you didn't scream at them as it was my fault for any bureaucratic snafus._

_If you are reading this, it means that I am trying to find my place in the afterlife. Being baptized Protestant then circumcised and Bar Mitzvah'd, I don't which afterlife I would end up stuck in._

_I enlisted in the Corps under the name that my real mother gave to me - Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii. It did not have the baggage that came with the Stoppable name. It was so convenient for me when I needed to run away from my mistakes. The only people who knew the name and the fact I was adopted was the folks who did my background checks, my step-parents (the Stoppables), and now you._

_I have looked upon you as my second mother and as such, I chose you to be my listed next of kin. My step-parents and I had some issues that I prefer would remain private since the dead have no need to air dirty laundry._

_However, there are some things I need to correct so I could rest in peace:_

_I ran away because I destroyed fifteen years of trust. Kim needed a friend and I was anything but._

_If anyone blames themselves for my death, STOP! I was the one dumb enough to volunteer for the Marines and then even dumber to volunteer for combat engineer training. If I blown myself to pieces playing around with explosives, it's my fault, no one else's._

_I have set up a charitable trust fund with a portion of my Naco royalties. In the event that I am dead, please contact - Atty. Kager Gerona; Castle, Davidson, Gerona, Johnson, Small, & Whittle, LLP; 20750 Ventura Blvd.; Ste. 913; Woodland Hills; CA 91364; Telephone 818-555-6500. Use it to fund medical and scientific research, starting with nano-bots to unclog all those arteries clogged by the processed cheese of my Naco._

_Tell the twins to break the news gently to Rufus. He has been a friend and I hope that you will take him into your family._

_Tell Kim that I am sorry that I messed up and that I deserve all her anger and hate. I died knowing that my life was not worth living once I lost her love and respect._

_I looked for my death and I guess that it finally found me._

_The former buffoon,_

_Ron Stoppable_

Dr. Possible read the letter in silence. The four military men kept their mouth shut as Dr. Possible wondered how to tell Kim that the father of her unborn child is dead.

She set down the leather and looked at the four men.

"Tell me how he died? I am a surgeon so don't spare me any details."


	13. Life or Death Decision

**Ron's Worst Nightmare**

**Life or Death Decisions**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

Kim never knew how bad mood swings could get. Some moments she would just sit there crying uncontrollably, other moments she wanted to rip off the heads of anyone she encountered.

The past couple months have been the emotional roller coaster ride from hell.

Kim has lost everything – starting with her confidence. She had believed that she could do anything. She was the leader. She was the face of Team Possible. She was the one asked for interviews. She was the one the media followed.

Now she was a twenty-year-old single pregnant white woman, patient number 741-10-0012, expected delivery date June 28.

Now the simplest decisions were becoming the hardest.

Kim could not bear to be in her room, nor could she bear to be outside her room. Everything reminded her of Ron. It was Ron who help her paint her room. It was Ron who assembled the bed she slept upon. There was no place in Middleton that did not have some association with Ron Stoppable.

Yesterday, she decided to end it all. She had an appointment with a doctor in another town to rid her of her growing problem.

Yet she would never be able to outrun the memories of her best friend if she stayed in Middleton.

Now Ron was dead. Kim wanted to hurt him. She wanted to see his eyes when she told Ron that she aborted his child. She wanted to see his eye as she thrust the last dagger in this play of betrayal.

Why did Ron have to have the last laugh on her? He died before she could get the final word - Before she could pay him back for the betrayal.

_Who betrayed who Kim?_

It was a voice that she did not want to hear. It was a voice that should have died. It was doubt.

Kim wanted to smash it. She wanted to kill it. Doubt was the enemy. Doubt slowed her down. Doubt was the thing that that made her mortal again.

_It had to be his fault. Kim Possible was perfect. She was the good girl. The one that every other good girl looked up to as a role model._

This was the voice that made her Kim Possible. It was the one that told her that anything was possible for a Possible. It was the voice that made her a goddess among a world full of mortals.

_Bonnie is not half the bitch you are, Kim._

Kim grabbed her Kummunicator and threw it across the room. It shattered into pieces breaking the mirror.

Kim made the mistake of looking into the shattered mirror on top of her vanity. The bump was becoming more noticeable everyday. Inside was Ron's kid. Now that Ron was dead, it had no father anymore. It was now her kid.

The simple decision she made yesterday became not simple anymore.


	14. Operation Vigilent Warden I

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

_**Operation Vigilant Warden, 1**_

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**WARNING: NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT; LANGUAGE

* * *

If it was not for the Casio G-Shock™ on his wrist, Private Vasilii Boiarskii, Second Squad, Second Platoon, Bravo Company, First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, First Marine Expeditionary Force, United States Marine Corps, would have long lost track of how many days he had spent in this African shithole.

"_Make Peace or Die!_" was the battalion motto. Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy with fire and maneuver was the first of the fifth's role on God's cursed earth. These two ideas aptly described Vasilii's mindset.

He had long forgotten about the land of the big PX and Smarty Mart. He had long forgotten about why Ron Stoppable left Middleton and joined the Green Machine. The friendship Ron Stoppable had with a certain redhead was history.

The ten days of leave he had enjoyed prior to reporting to his first unit was spent in proving the fact that a man in Marine Dress Blues had no problem finding willing, attractive, female bed partners. Blondes, brunettes, and a redhead just to spite the _bitch_ ... Asians, Latinas, and even a light chocolate-skin Creole ex-playmate from New Orleans were more than willing to show Vasilii that women loved a confident man. Fake it and he never have to sleep alone. He only cursed the fact that he learnt this fact at twenty instead of fourteen.

Vasilii had long forgotten what a conscience was. Here there was no one to protest, there was no one to rein him back, no one to stop the inner demons from lashing out on the world that betrayed Vasilii Boiarskii.

He popped two more APC's, the little white pills that every navy corpsman passed out like _tic-tacs_ to Marines for minor aches and pains. Aspirin and codeine – Light-fighters' candy made the pain bearable. He had half a bottle and that would hold him down for a while.

Vasilii had spent twenty-two days and expended thirty-two match-grade MR118 7.62x51mm NATO rounds teaching the local militia why they should have pay attention to the battalion motto of the First of the Fifth.

Every war meant another name to call the opposition. The Germans were called Fritz, the Japanese – Japs, the NK's – Luke the Gook, the Vietnamese – Charlie. Vasilii was spending his free time trying to figure out a suitable name for the Sudanese Militia, but the best he could come up with was the '_Shits_.' It was not politically correct, but succinctly described this part of Africa in a single syllable.

According to the GPS unit, he was seventeen kilometers or _klicks_ from battalion base camp as the crow flies. However, seventeen klicks in a straight line meant forty to fifty by the time he would make it though roving militia patrols.

Vasilii waited for night to fall. It was thirty-six hours since his canteen last held any drinking water and ninety-six since he had anything resembling food. He had to get some, but the local drinking water would only serve to give him the _shits_ and speed him onto a death by dehydration. He had to get water and a safe place where he could boil it.

Below was another third world village of _Shits_. Any male old enough to wear pants or shorts sported the local fashion accessory – _Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947_ and shower flip-flops. Hell half the mamas here names their boys _Kalash_ after the damned thing.

Vasilii was careful to keep the sun to his back so that any errant reflections would not betray his position. There were fifteen to twenty armed _shits_ swaggering about, trying to impress the _HIV_ infected maidens with the necklaces of belted 7.62x30mm M1943 Soviet.

Everyday, he wanted to perform retroactive birth control on every _shit_ in Sudan. The former Ron Stoppable concern for the innocent be damned, but Vasilii grew to hate everyone would did not have USMC imprinted unto their three color desert pattern battle dress uniforms.

Old men, women, children – there was no civilians worthy of the sacrifices that the Marine peacekeepers made ... that was worth the death of Vasilii's squad mates. The locals laughed, they danced, they probably made babies at the thought of shooting marines. Vasilii vowed to ensure that they learned that this marine did not care how many object lessons he had to make, but no one ... no one ... fucked around with the marines of the first of the fifth.

Operation _Vigilant Warden_ had become _Operation Shit-Stack _in Vasilii's mind the moment the hyenas feasted on the bodies of his squad mates. Tonight, he would pay the local Jihadists an educational visit, restock his canteen with boiled water, and liberate some chickens. Tonight he was going to eat a warm meal and turn the locals into hyena food.

_Too bad I don't have the time or salt to salt their fields._

Afterwards, they will know that a white ghost ... a white hunter of men were going to pull a Father Flannigan. He would prove their was not such thing as a bad boy, just ones that have not yet been corrected by a thirty caliber match grade bullet to the cranial cavity.

Vasilii thanked an unappreciative deity that this was a typical third world collection of hovels. The locals woke up and went to bed with the sun. There was no electricity and when the sun dropped the only light was the waning moon.

Vasilii had reapply the camouflage face paint to all exposed skin surfaces and slowly crawled his way into the village. It was silent. All he could hear was the occasional movement of the local goat or the cluck of a hen. His goal was simple. The local version of a mosque was the only real sturdy structure. It would have a fountain for the faithful to wash prior to prayers. The local mullah was the one telling the locals the locals that killing marines is their ticket to paradise and the forty-seven virgins. Also he would be wealthy enough to have a pot to boil water and cook chickens.

No one thought of posting any sentries. Despite the grandiose dreams of the mullahs, this was just another third world village of _shits_ that would not make any impact in the grand schemes of things. All they did was pray, grow crops, smoke or chew drugs, make more _shits_, and chant slogans like death to America. Hell, no one could probably point out where America was on a map.

Inside the mosque was the only book in this pig-sty, a _Koran_. Vasilii looked at the flowing, oddly beautiful script. He pocketed it. The book was the greatest propaganda tool even devised. The local mullahs would hold it up say whatever and pointed to a random passage saying that it was in the _Koran_. Since most of the locals could not read or even speak Arabic, it allowed the mullahs to boss around the local congregation. By taking the book, Vasilii was taking the local mullah's bed rock of power.

It was midnight when, Vasilii hear motion. He quickly made his way to the door, positioning himself so that he would be out of sight.

A man, early thirties, dark skin, skinny, tall, and wearing a white fez-like cap walked inside. He surveyed the mosque, turned around and stared at Vasilii.

Vasilii had his USMC issue K-bar fighting knife ready. He tackled the man and have hack the man's head halfway off before the body hit the ground. He was positioned over the dying man who was stunned that a white ghost could kill him in his seat of power.

Vasilii knew that this man would be discovered soon. He quickly threw the mullah's body into the _mihrab, _or niche on the wall that told the local which way to face so that they will point to Mecca during prayers.

Vasilii made his way towards the mullah's quarters.

One hour later, Vasilii left the village. The only signs of his passing were a missing pot, two missing chickens, some spices, one dead mullah, one missing Koran, and the bodies of the mullah family, all killed by a blade. The part of Vasilii call Ron Stoppable was in tears, but Vasilii loved the old Dutch quote – "You can't bake an omelets without breaking an egg." Vasilii would not be able to get the head honcho without killing a few supporters.

Vasilii loved Hate and Hate love him. It only took four muscles to give the world the finger and only four to pull the trigger. He hated Vader – Why did the number bad guy hate to fall to the dark side over a _bitch_? Ron Stoppable was the Jedi wantabee. Vasilii Boiarskii was the true Master of the Sith.

More powerful than Darth Vader, more cunning than Darth Sidious, Vasilii Boiarskii was going to destroy the local militia more decisively than the Sith ever dreamt of destroying the Jedi Order.

When the sun came up tomorrow mourning, Vasilii knew that he would become the hunted. The first stage of Vasilii's plan for revenge was on schedule. He couldn't wait to turn the tables on the hunters.


	15. Return of the SuperVillians

**Ron's Worse Nightmares**

**Return of the Super-Villains**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

Global Justice had underestimated Shego again.

Global Justice took a page from the former Soviet Union and built their latest Ultra-Maximum Security Prison where Mother Nature would do the guarding.

_Antarctica was great and all. Imagine Siberia with a thousand mile ring of ice-cold water around it._

Outside the wall, the unprotected human body, not yet acclimated to the sub-zero temperatures, would begin to suffer the effects of hypothermia within a couple minutes.

The staff lovingly told Shego that the interior was kept at thirty-two degrees Centigrade. Being raised in the United States, Shego did not think in terms of the metric system. Therefore, she spent a few minutes recalling the conversion formula and came up with ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

This prison was a high tech bio-dome. Instead of volunteers from the scientific community like the other bio-domes, Global Justice was using convicts as guinea pigs.

Shego once read in passing that England once used the colonies as a dumping ground for its petty criminals. Transport was what they called it.

_This must be in preparation for the time they send our kind into space._

Shego wondered if Global Justice would ever thing of that when the technology is ready, and if so what will the revolution look like in a generation or two.

The prisoners were put in a pseudo-primitive environment, given some quickie survival classes by an instructor, and told that they had to make their own shelter, catch and prepare their own food, and make their own clothing.

Shego's days consisted of sleeping on a hammock she stole from one of her fellow inmates, netting some and cooking fish, letting the other prisoners know that she was not to be trifled with, and plotting her escape.

Shego cursed the perversity of fate.

Here she was a former heroine, now working for an incompetent mad scientist who had to hire her to steal all his doomsday devices. She did not know whatever perverted _bitch_ of fate decree that she would be stuck with Dr. Drakken.

Shego had no romantic interest with the blue skin freak. Not even the moodulator could get her over his mama's boy attitude, bad teeth, and perpetual stink from lack of bathing.

Shego had been on this perpetual funk since she was sixteen.

At fourteen, she had enough of Hego's bossy ways and ran away from home.

It was either steal or whore herself out to survive.

Having worked on the side of law and order for a couple years, Shego already mastered the basics of breaking and entering and more importantly how to fence the high end loot. Besides sleeping with strangers was not her style. Despite the form fitting costumes and rumors traded among perverts on the web, Shego was a sexual conservative.

By the age of sixteen, she had stolen and successfully ransomed back the crown jewels of England, five pieces of art from the Louvre Museum in Paris, and hit the diamond exchange in Tel Aviv twice. The only place she did not steal from was China. Not because she did not like Chinese artifacts, but the fact that the Westerns stole most of the good stuff before Mao laid down the law and the fact that the Chinese would not pay her ransom demands.

When she was eighteen, Kim Possible made her debut. Soon, like clockwork, Shego would have a fight with the red head teen and Ron Stoppable would then manage to activate the self-destruction device. _Why did Dr. D insist on placing one on every machine ... hello ... stupidity in action?_

It was simple. The one ting this placed lacked was a hospital that could perform emergency surgery. Shego simply staged a false escape attempt, ensure that the prison guards shot her multiple times, and faked a coma. Global Justice came through. Most other places would just perform _New York style_ CPR (kick her in the ribs and tell her to die) and then pronounced her dead, but Global Justice had her medivaced off the ice.

The surgery and recovery was painful, even for Shego. The doctors keep digging into her flesh with a variety of sharp implements eager to generate more medical bills for Global Justice to pay. The armed guards outside her room began to relax, thinking that Shego was now an invalid.

Quietly slipping out of a German operated hospital in Argentina, what actually the hardest part of the escape. The nurses were dutiful and arrived on a Teutonic-engineered schedule to check her vital signs. Shego selected the nurse carefully.

Shego knocked out the appropriate nurse, stripped her, put on the uniform, put the nurse into her bed, inserted the IV's. Shego grabbed the painkillers. She knew that she was already hopelessly addicted to the stuff, but would have to wean herself off of them later in the privacy of her own lair.

Walking out of the hospital was easy. Getting the lonely Global Justice agent to give her a ride to his apartment was just the icing on the perfect escape. He looked like his only _girlfriend_ was the hairy palms of his hands.

Shego wondered which was more of a shock – Thinking that he would actually make it back to home plate, or his finding out that his girlfriend _Nurse Ratchet_ enjoyed making him dance as he attempted to dodge her plasma blasts.

It took three weeks for her to return back to the United States, two of which were spent in Rio enjoying the Christmas in summer with Herr Frederick Hoffman, a vineyard owner in the Czech Republic.

Shego sexual antics were limited to an alcohol-fueled one night stand with Senor Senior Junior, but Junior could not get the idea that it took more than money to get Shego to the alter. Thankfully, she did not end up pregnant despite it being in the middle of her fertile period.

Besides, he believed in _animology_ and he was fixated on Kim Possible because he was some kind of yellow _turd_.

Herr Hoffman was different. He was an older gentleman ... old enough to be her father. However, he was young enough to perform in the bed, yet old enough to be dignified. He did not belittle her or acted as she was not his equal. He did not ask questions, but merely listened.

Shego once heard once of the henchmen describe Mrs. Possible as a MILF, or Mothers I'll Like to F... The thought of a young guy chasing after a forty something year old once sicken her. Now she understood why some were attract to more mature partners. Young guys, like Junior, where wham, bam, let us do it again. More mature partners might not have the recovery time, but they acted like ever intimate moment was a blessing.

Shego wondered if her attraction was based on the fact that she was yearning for a father substitute. However, she quickly cut off the line of thought. She was never into incest.

During the two weeks as Hoffman's lover, Shego both enjoyed the physical aspects of the affair and the fact that someone actually thought of her as wife material. Shego did not have to put on the tough girl act that made millions of perverts on the web believe that she was a battle axe lesbian.

Shego considered just quitting the crime game. She had enough money to ensure that she and any kids she had would not run out of money until the grandkids of their great-great-great-grandkids were old enough to collect their retirement. She had dozens of alternate identities that would stand up to everything but the most detailed of background investigations. However, she had some debts of honor to pay back before she could leave the world of villainy behind.

She promised that she would help Dr. D success at least once before she retired.

So Shego reluctantly promised to visit Frederick during Holy Week, instead of returning with him immediately. She had four months to wrap up her life in villainy, before retiring to a vineyard. The thought of growing old and making babies did not seem so _not her_ anymore.

It was January 7th, when Shego landed in Las Vegas on a chartered private jet. Customs and immigration were not too suspicious. What kind of terrorist flew around in private jets and had a staff waiting for her arrival in Sin City?

As Fraulein Freda Dresdner, the heir apparent to Dresdner, Inc., she had a multi-million dollar account at the Bellagio, a standing leasing on a penthouse suite, and a reputation as a power to be reckoned with at the craps tables. What the folks at the Bellagio did not know was that Dresdner's alter-ego Shego learned that her powers included a weak form of telekinesis. Shego could roll hard eights all day.

After taking a couple hundred grand off the tables, she would retire to the spa and plan the ultimate capstone to a career in villainy.


	16. Good News, Bad News

**Ron's Worse Nightmares**

**Good News, Bad News**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Shego, in her Rachel Myers identity, was shopping for lair supplies at Smarty Mart when she saw the tabloids. They were showing long distance shots of the growing bump on Kim Possible's belly.

The headlines screamed, "Who knocked up Miss Perfect?", "Kim Possible Knocked Up at Orgy!", "Guess What's Coming Out in 6 Months?", and "Boy, Girl, Alien, or the Anti-Christ? Which One is Kim Carrying?"

Shego bought all of the tabloids, while trying not to laugh hysterically at the news. The biggest obstacle to her plans was out on maternity leave.

Inside were _educated guesses_ on the identity of the father of Kim's Baby. The sick one theorized about how her father knocked her up. Another blamed aliens. A third theorist claims that this was the first virgin birth since Christ and that this spelled the coming of the end of days.

Shego would have put her money on Ron Stoppable, but Kim was too much of a bitch to see that she had true love waiting in front of her.

Using the web, Shego found out that Team Possible split up three months ago and the Kim's unnamed sidekick simply disappeared.

Shego had to find out what happen to Ron Stoppable. Kim kept Shego at bay, but it was Ron who managed to defeat Dr. D and the other henchmen and activate the self-destruction device. It was Ron who did the real work, while Kim and Shego played smack the bitch.

Shego slipped into Middleton using her Rachel Myers identity. Deputy Marshal Rachel Myers of the United States Marshals Service managed to find out that Ron was missing and presumed death in the first wave of attacks against American Marines in Sudan.

Shego now had all the contingencies taken care of. She had a plan. Kimmie was out of the hero game and Ron Stoppable could not come back from the grave and interfere.

Before Shego went to spring Dr. D from his latest prison, she went to the Middleton Botanical gardens and picked a few flowers. She had to visit an old friend's grave.


	17. Last Caress

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Last Caress**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**WARNING: NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT

* * *

Vasilii Boiarskii found other reason to hate the _shits_.

Looking through his USMC-issued Steiner 8 x 60mm field glasses, he noted that the local militiamen were taking a break and smoking the local version of cannabis.

_Effing druggies – What kind of fucked up dip-shit smokes pot and yet can't have a single drop of anything good to drink?_

He hated them. He hated the fact that they did not take the business of hunting down the _great_ Vasilii Boiarskii with great seriousness.

Vasilii did not kind whether to be offended by the slight or be honored by the fact that they had to smoke the rope to gather the courage to face him.

Did they think that because Boiarskii was just one guy, that they would have an easy time hunting him down. He was not an effing _dik-dik_ (miniature African deer) or _cockroach_ to be snares by little lengths of twine. God Almighty and the United State Marine Corps had anointed Private Boiarskii with thee talent and skill to terminate a human life at five hundred meters.

They were only two hundred fifty meters away. It would be a tough head shot, but here in Africa a chest shot was just as fatal.

The _Shits_, or as Vasilii personally dubbed the Sudanese, especially the militia were smoking the rope like spies did in the movies before they were taken out to the firing squad.

_Too bad I don't have any effing blind folds today, but it does not really matter._

The hard part for Vasilii was choosing the first _Shit_ to exterminate.

_The leader or the guy carrying the _Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyreva.

The choice was easy. The RPD was the only real threat. The locals waved around AK-47's like shamans waving around their magic sticks.

Vasilii's inner demons twisted the lyrics of an old Misfits song.

_I got something to say;_

_I gut your poppa today;_

_It don't matter;_

_As long as he's dead;_

_I got something to say;_

_I'll kill 'lil Junior today;_

_It doesn't matter;_

_As long as you're dead;_

_Sweet lovely death;_

_Waiting for more flesh;_

_Sweet lovely death;_

_They've one last caress._

Killing never felt so right.

Many men have wasted their lives seeking their purpose in life. Not Vasilii. Vasilii was born, bred, and trained as a perfect killing machine. Otherwise, how would god almighty justify the crap that Vasilii endured.

God had the KGB second directorate separate him from his family so that they did not soften him with love.

God had sent him to the Stoppable family so that Mr. and Mrs. Stoppable can instill the demons of anger and toughen him up to pain.

God hooked him up with the red-head _bitch_ so that he would be in position to be touched by the mystical monkey powers. The _bitch_ taught Vasilii that soft flesh was not to be trusted. While soft flesh can be extremely pleasurable, that it was there to be uses and then throw away before it became a liability. He may one day bred with a _bitch_, but he would never allow one to come so close to his heart.

God had him bump into the Marine recruiter so that he could go throughout God's cursed earth as God's avatar of vengeance.

When he returned, Vasilii vowed to become the perfect killing machine. Even if he did not earn a medal, the Corps would not deny him a chance at Marine Recon. Between the Corps, the ninja school at Yamanouchi Mountain, and his life experience, Vasilii Boiarskii would have the skills to teach the world what evil truly was.

All he had to do was earn his slot by killing the dozen or so _shits_ in front of him.

Maybe then one day, he would show the red-head bitch what rape truly was like.

Somewhere inside Ron Stoppable was pretending that he was still the good boy.

_Ron Stoppable ... Weak, pathetic, almost as pitiful as a slug just before you pour salt on its body._

Ron Stoppable could not destroy him.

Ron Stoppable needed Vasilii Boiarskii as much as Vasilii Boiarskii needed Ron Stoppable.

Vasilii Boiarskii was the embodiment of all the qualities that made mankind the pinnacle of nature. _Kill or be killed. Fight, Win, Prevail, and then slay your opponents._ Ron Stoppable was the construct of a society that was unworthy of having Vasilii in their midst. He was the collective that weaken the will. Ron Stoppable was the sheepskin that Vasilii the Wolf wore as not to spook the flock.

For the past seventeen years, Ron Stoppable held Vasilii back. He learned to be the whipping boy. Now it was Vasilii's time to dominate the body they shared. He would be a whipping boy no more.

Vasilii lined up the crosshairs and started breathing as the marksmanship instructors taught him a lifetime ago at San Diego. Lovingly he caressed the trigger. Four muscles ... three and a half pounds ... Breathe ... Relax ... Aim ... Sight ... Squeeze

_Bang_.

Vasilii stop thinking and went on autopilot. His body was performing the tasks as Vasilii's consciousness took in the lovely grey and pink mist. A perfect head shot … fitting proof the he was doing God's work.

Already the body was lining up another object lesson on why one should not be high in the middle of a combat zone. This time it would be a chest shot.

_Bang._

Vasilii could felt the slap of the bullet entering the target's torso. It was a sound that no civilian could ever appreciate.

_Bang._

_Bang._

_Bang._

Three more object lessons fell to the dusty earth.

They were waving around their AK's like magic wands, hitting everything but Vasilii Boiarskii.

Boiarskii dashed leading the survivors on a chase. He carefully stepped over the trip wire that he prepared half an hour ago.

The claymore finished the chase. Vasilii heard that there were six hundred sixty six steel ball bearings in a claymore mine. 666 – The number of the beast ... The number of Vasilii Boiarskii.

Vasilii went to view his handiwork. One of the shit's had an interesting weapon. It was an AKS-74U. Use by Russian _Spetsnaz_, or Special Forces unit, it was a submachine gun using assault rifle ammunition. It was the favorite weapon of Osama bin Laden, and the perfect answer to Vasilii's need for a close in weapon. The _Shit_ did not need it anymore. One of Vasilii's match grade 30-caliber bullets top the skull ensured that point.

Vasilii searched the bodies. Other than three topped off magazines for the AKS-74U. There was nothing else that he or intelligence could use.

Vasilii took in a deep breath, taking in the now familiar coopery order of spilled blood. He reached into the chest pocket of his BDU's and took out a pencil and a green notebook. Like all good Marines, he immediately wrote up an after action report ... no opinions, just the facts about the ambush and the outcome.

"Oh ... _Shut up Ron_."

Ron was trying to throw up. Weak, pitiful, but necessary Ron. He soon will learn to leave the hard decisions up to Vasilii. It was easier that way for the both of them.


	18. Dr D Learns His Place

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Dr. D Learns His Place**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

It was six months since Drakken last saw his former sidekick Shego. He noted that something was different. Sometimes the sarcastic edge was softened ... as if she was someplace else.

_She actually missed me. Maybe ..._

A familiar blast of green plasma stopped Drakken's line of thought before it got to far or his hopes grew too big for his little brain.

Shego did not kill him or even hurt him yet. That was a good sign ... wasn't it?

"Dr. D. Sit down and shut up. You have been planning the missions. What do we get? I get an _excellent_ cardiovascular workout with Kim Possible and you get ... Ron Stoppable blowing up our latest doomsday device. This I have to bust our sorry rears out of prison."

"Ron who?"

Shego's left hand lit up in an all too familiar green glow.

Drakken did not like where this conversation was heading.

"This time, it's my plan, my schedule, and you will do exactly as I say. I am not going to let the last act of my criminal career end up like the five hundred seventy seven other abortions you planned."

_Did she say last act ... Shego can't quit. Who's gonna make my Coco-Moo in the mornings ... Who is gonna listen to my rants?_

"Yes Dr. D. This is my last act as your sidekick. I am gonna effectively give you your own country. One with a security council veto and a couple nukes."

"Wisconsin. I want the biggest block of ..."

Shego punctuated her displeasure with another blast.

"Wisconsin is a state you moron. California produces better cheese. Haven't you been seeing the commercials they have been putting out. Good chess comes from happy cows and happy cows come from California"

"But ..."

"But what ... I said country, not a frigging state, you freak. I am surprised that you managed to figure out how to breath when you were born. Think ... country ... Think permanent UN Security Council veto ... Think nukes ... Think about the wine and cheese."

"Is it Japan. They have cool toys."

The look of annoyance on Shego's faces told Drew Lipsky that it was time to duck.

"France you idiot. If I gave you Japan, don't you think that the ninjas will have your head severed from your body within twenty four hours of your taking over their homeland.

"I am giving a country that no one likes. The English are exactly fond of the French. The Germans aren't exactly fond of the French either. All you have to do is to do is to make sure your puppet do not threaten your neighbors and I guarantee that even you will be able to hold onto France."

"Am I gonna be king."

"No you dumb shit. Just shut up. Do as I say and you will own the government of France before the end of Lent."

"Lent, what is Lent."

Shego shook her head. Even though Drew Lipsky was born and raised Jewish, anyone raised in Middle America should have enough familiarity with the Christian liturgical calendar.

"Passover, before Passover."

"When's that?"

Shego was now really pissed off. She is risking her chance at a normal life to help this idiot. The guy was suppose to be Jewish. Can't he figure that one out.

Drakken made the final mistake of asking Shego where France is.

For that Shego made him run around in circles for a while dodging plasma blasts. By the time Drakken collapsed from exhaustion, he figured out that she was the boss and that he was going to be the sidekick.


	19. Operation Vigilent Warden II

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**_Operation Vigilant Warden, 2_**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**In Apocalypse Now, Col. Kilgore said, "You smell that? Do you smell that? ... Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like ... victory. Someday this war's gonna end."

However the war between Ron Stoppable and Vasilii Boiarskii would never end. There was no cleansing napalm to clear the sweet sticky air of rotten flesh. There would be no smell of victory - just the coppery, sticky scent of spilled blood and the arousing scent of burnt gunpowder. Not even a century in the Land of the Big PX would elimate the experience of this war from their collective consciousness. The war between the two would countine as long as these two personas shared the same mortal flesh. It would continue until the end of his days.

Vasilii smiled. Dr. Hanabal Lector was a master of manipulating the human mind. Vasilii was the master of placing a 175-grain 30-calibler match grade bullet in it at two hundred plus meters.

Private Vasilii Boiarskii, First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, First Marine Expeditionary Force, has lost his _battlefield cherry_ in a shithole called Sudan and become the alpha male among the _dogs of war_. Not even the warm bodies of attractive females aroused him like the chaos, blood, and disorder of the battlefield. Here, an entire country became his playground.

The local militia had someone who must have watched Blackhawk Down. The street looked exactly the film down to the burnt out hulk of a helicopter. Unfortunately for the flight crew, the locals could not tell the difference between a Red Crescent chopper delivering humanitarian supplys and an American Blackhawk with a squad of marine aboard. The Red Crescent flight crew was chopped up into little pieces. If some of the locals were into cannibalism, Vasilii would have not been surprised.

Everyone was a thing in Vasilii's world. They were there to allow Vasilii to act out God's great play. They were the bit actors that the hero slayed in great numbers to warm up before facing off against the big boss.

Ron Stoppable had been learning. He learned when it was time to let Vasilii keep their body alive. However, Ron still had the tendacy to cut of Vasilii just as things were getting fun.

If it was not for Ron, Vasilii would have long ran out of rounds for his favorite tool. The Precision Weapons Shop at Quantico, Virgina made a weapon worthy of Vasilii Boiarskii skills. Although the M25 semiautomatic action was not as accurate that the M40A3 bolt action sniper rifle used by Marine Corps snipers, the M25 allow Vasilii to quickly switch to the next target without having to dismount his weapon to manipulate a bolt.

There was always a temptation to turn another human being into an object lesson. However, Ron refused to shot anyone that was not armed. Ron was right, but not for the right reasons. If Vasilii killed them all, who would live to spread the message.

If only the local population could read, Vasilii's image would be up on wanted posters. He always wanted to see how high the bounty would be on his head. He hoped that it was cash. He was worth more than a couple goats or chickens.

It was Ron's turn to run the body. Vasilii just watched as the wealking fought the urge to fall asleep in the hide. They had been awake for seventy two hours. However to fall asleep outside would mean being eaten by hyenas.

Two hours later, Ron Stoppable crawled into an attic. The only occupants were insects, rats, and a dead body. The body was rotten enough to discourage all but the most desparate from staying inside the building.

It was time to rest. He was less than 4,000 meters from battalion base camp. 4,000 meters to his ticket to the completion of his mission. 4,000 meters to an ice-cold beer and maybe a chance at some USDA choice grade steak, just this side of bloody, served with a mushroom and red wine sauce.

However, between Ron Stoppable and his desire for decent food was a a couple hundred militia members who would like nothing better than to feed Ron Stoppable his own balls.

Terror got old. After a while one got numb. Ron Stoppable was beyond numb. He closed his eyes and the nightmares came.

This time the ones he killed cheered and dance as he killed Kim Possible. Kim, age five, Ron pulled the trigger. Kim at the junior prom, Ron used a hatchet. The evening Kim and he made love, Ron choked her to death as he raped her.

The veterans told him about the dreams. They told him about the gun that would not work, enemies that would be invunerable to whatever deam weapons he had. However they did not tell Ron Stoppable about torturing and killing the girl he still loved.

Vasilii was happy. He had all access to all the bitterness and hatred that Ron Stoppable had shoved into the darkest recesses of his mind. Vasilii was like an evil Rufus high on extra cheesy nacos.

Ron did not need a ray to become evil. He always was evil, it was just that he denied his true nature.

Giving into Vasilii felt so temping. Vasilii lived in the now with no though beyond making his enemies hurt. However, when Vasilii went away, it was Ron that would have to pay the price.

The sun and the bitting insects woke Ron Stoppable in time for the local festivities.

Depite a pitch battle on the the eastern edge of town, the locals were acting like nothing was happening here. The market was open. The local HIV prostitutes were selling pleasure and death for pennies. The bazzar had goods from food to Isreali M26A2 hand grenades.

Outside the local mullahs were encouraging the local militia to fight the western infidel. The cannabis was being passed out and the shits were have one big community smoke out.

They were chanting slogan as Ron prepared for his final stand. They were going to assault Ron's fellow marines and he couldn't let them.

Vasilii was not going to oppose him on this fight. Vasilii probably would ensure that Ron Possible would die with a stiffie. This was all that Vasiliied lived for.

Ron prepared the last of his claymore mines on a time delay. It will ignite ten seconds after the door was opened. It would not kill the first ones in but kill the ones coming in afterwards.

Sixty seven M118LR match grade round, he vowed to take out at least sixty seven of the enemy.

Ron Stoppable placed the crosshairs on the face of the mullah.

Four muscles, three and a half pound, the familiar kick, and Ron Stoppable started to pay the ferryman's fare to Vahalla.


	20. Paying the Ferryman

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Paying the Ferryman**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Sergeant Miguel Cortez, USMC, was watching a crowd of militiamen smoking cannabis. Because of the rules of engagement the forward observe was not allowed to call in an artillery fire mission until this particular group marched past a predetermined deadline.

It was only a matter of time before the local militia launched another attack. They always smoked drugs before they attacked.

Six years spent fighting insurgents and foriegn Jihadistsin Iraqi, gave Sergeant Cortez a command of the Arabic language and a familiarity with the Koran.

The local mullah was reciting the passage that described the reward that martyrs for the cause of Islam shall receive in paradise. It was hard to make out the individual words, because the local mullah butchered the Arabic language.

Sudan was supposed to be a temporary assignment until the UN multinational force moved into the area. However, it was fast becoming a quagmire like Iraq.

_At least there is hope for Iraq._

Iraq had a relatively civilized population with a high degree of morals and education. They took pride in being Iraqi. That was one of the major fuels for the insurgency.

The Sudanese could make the marines of African descend shudder in disgust. Sudan as a nation was destroyed. It was just a bunch of warlords and tribes fighting it out to be the king of a dung heap.

There were no real medical doctors. The number of university graduates could be counted upon one hand. There was no real road or communication network. The only things that seem to work in this country were the imported arms bought for by the blood of the oppressed.

The sound of a gunshot told Sergeant Cortez that someone else was in the game. It was too loud, too deep, too resonating to be a 7.62x39mm Soviet round. It sounded more authoritative.

Another gunshot confirmed Sergeant Cortez's guess.

It was an American gun, probably a sniper rifle.

The crowd returned fire in the general direction of the gun shot.

The gun fired twice in rapid succession. A package was throw outside the window.

Fifteen seconds later, the satchel charge blew up take a hand full of the militia with it.

Despite the fire, the lone shooter was still picking of the local militia.

There was no marines forward of Cortez's position.

Cortez scanned the area looking for the shooter.

The shooter was too smart to use a window.

Cortez scanned the wall.

_There_. Cortez spotted the muzzle flash as the shoot took out another militiaman.

Cortez quickly picked up the field telephone.

"Bravo Alpha six two ... Brave Alpha six two. This is Sierra Whiskey Six Shooter over."

"Sierra Whiskey Six Shooter ... This is Bravo Alpha six two standing by. Do you have a fire mission, over."

The voice on the end was metallic and distant.

"Negative. We have gunshots. Source appears to be a building east of the mosque. Source is firing into a crowd of militia. Say again someone is shooting into the militia. I also report that explosives have gone off in the vicinity of the mosque square."

"Are the militia firing in your direction?"

"Negative. Do I have permission to call in a fire mission on the square. The mullahs have passed the grass to the congregation."

"Negative. Do not fire until fired upon or the enemy had cross the red line."

_Shit_, _one of our snipers could be in trouble and I can't do a damned thing._

The sniper struck again.

_However you are, you have big balls you ESS OH BEE._

The concrete wall was being turned into Swiss cheese by gun fire, but the shooter kept on going, making every round count.

Bang. Every gunshot bought forth a response from the survivors.

The militia crashed the door to the building. Now Sergeant Cortez could not do a damned thing now for the poor shooter, even if he was allowed to call in a fire mission.

There was the sound of a large explosion as the building collapsed in upon itself.

Now there was silence.

Cortez was calling in his report when the building fell.

The shooter was no more. He took a lot of the enemy with him, but there were many more left to celebrate.

The locals were dancing while others pick their way though the rubble looking for the corpse of the shooter.

Cortez watched in sicken fascination as he relayed what he was seeing to headquarters.

Suddenly, the shooter made his presence known again.

_Christ, this guy is looking for a medal to go with his coffin._

The militia started venting their frustration, burning their ammo on the rumble pile. Nevertheless, the shooter killed his targets methodically one at a time as if he was on the known distance range at Paris Island.

Now the locals were bringing in rocket propelled grenades against the shooter.

Three of them were shot into the rubble. However the shooter was too stubborn to die. Three more shots rang out and the three RPG wielders where turned into object lessons.

The local militia was upset to say the least. They hosed the building with automatic gunfire until they ran out of ammunition.

There was no return reply. The locals were whooping it up like they just whipped the entire corps.

Sergeant Cortez would forever remember this moment. He had been cheering on the shooter. One shooter was able to break up an attack before the local militia could kill some Marines. Cortez had a radio, but the damn rules of engagementprevented him from helping an unknown friend.

_You have some big brass ones. Too bad I can't buy you a cold one buddy_.


	21. Estaler le Merde

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

_**Éstaler la Merde (To Spread the Sh...)**_

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**To say Drakken was upset was an understatement.

When word got out how his once-time side kick planned to bring a nation to its knees... Drew Lipsky would be the laughing stock of the super-villain community.

All Shego told him was one word ... _merde_.

Drakken had to go to in one of those free translations websites order to find out what it meant.

It took him half an hour before he found the right language to have to make the online automatic translator work. How was he supposed to know that the French speak French and what Americans speak is called English.

_Stoopid website. Don't they know that the world speaks American?_

Why can't they accept that theworld speak American?

MTV™, Nickelodeon™, Cartoon Network™, and Disney™ taught all the little boys and girls around the globe how to speak perfect American.

The stuff did sure stink, but how was _merde_ gonna make the French government his toy.

Shego was rapidly draining Drakken's bank accounts buying up small and midsized French and Dutch companies that specialized in waste management and chemical and petroleum processing. She was also paying some French labor unions leaders to wait before declaring the next general strike.

_How did merde, waste management, chemicals, petroleum and French labor unions play together?_

Every time he asked her a question, he had to duck one of Shego's green plasma blasts. She told him to shut up and wait in his room with his Coco-Moo and teddy bear. Worse yet the other henchmen overheard it and started playing the game of hiding Dr. D's loyal companion _Teddy_.

It was too much. He was the _great Doctor Drakken_. It did not matter that he dropped out one semester into Middleton University. It did not matter that Shego had to steal all his doomsday devices from other villains. He was the great Doctor Drakken.

One of the henchmen ran in, grabbed _Teddy_, smiled, and ran out.

_Now I gonna spend another day trying to find Teddy_._ It's not fair. Why can't have have a mega-cannon, lasers, and a gigantic robot? All Shego does is let me play find Teddy_ with the henchmen.

Dr. Drakken found himself sucking his thumb.

_Note to self – I gotta stop that. If one of the hench-crew see this, I cannot figure out what they will do._

At that instant, there was a web-cam recording Dr. D sucking his thumb and placing the image out on the world wide web. There would be one point seven million hits on the website in the next twelve hours. It bacame one of the world's most popular screen savers and an overdone joke on Saterday Night Live™.


	22. From the Rubble

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**From the Rubble**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Sergeant Miguel Cortez, First Battalion, Fifth Regiment, First Marine Expeditionary Force, United States Marine Corps watched silently at the United Nations Multinational Task Force made their appearance. They waited of course until the First of the Fifth suppressed the uprising and then came in to Monday morning quarterback. 

In the past two week forty-six Marines were dead or missing in action, and there were over one hundred twenty wounded. To add to the Marines general level of anger, the _blue mushrooms_ arrived. Some can't-cunt European general tried to chew out the colonel for aggravating the locals and actually using lethal force upon a population that merely peacefully protested against American occupation. Not even the pile of captured rocket propelled grenades, machine guns, mortars, and hand grenades would budge the UN types from their theory.

_Like you need an Chinese made 82mm mortar to protect your goat herd._

However, the UN types promised to complain at the highest levels.

According to the scuttlebutt floating around at the NCO club, Master Gunnery Sergeant Goldman had to break up the ensuing fist fight between the colonel and the UN officers. The colonel told the UN types to have their troops practice their surrender drills since that was all the UN was good for.

_Such a shame, the State Department would bitch and it will cost the old man his star._

There were too many paper tigers inside the beltway. They did not have half the balls of the female marine recruits at San Diego and sat when they need to make wee-wee. They would ensure that any warrior would be put out to pasture.

However, the NCO network was universal throughout most Western armies. Master Gunnery Sergeant Goldman talked to his opposite number to _allow_ the marines a chance to do a through sweep of the town to search for missing marines.

Taking advantage of the chance, Cortez led his squad towards the last known location of the shooter.

The rubble was still smoking and there were still bodies and blood.

It was time to find the shooter who saved Cortez's fellow marines.

"Marines, we got a guy with big brass balls who is depending on us to bring his body back home. He fought like a marine and should be honored like a marine. I don't care how tired you are. We are Marines and we never ever leave a marine behind. Oorah!"

The entire squad chanted the Marine battle cry. "Oorah!"

The squad started digging in the rubble.

Twenty minutes later, Corporal Jackson started yelling, "Sergeant, I got him. It's a Marine."

Sergeant Cortez and the platoon corpsman, Hospital Corpsman 'Doc' Gordon, scrambled up the pile of rubble. Gordon knelt and examined the body.

"We got a live one, sarge. Don't move him. Have Frank call in a medivac. Crush trauma with gunshot woulds. Have everyone else … carefully remove the rubble around the body. Don't touch him until I say it's okay."

Even though Sergeant Cortez outranked the corpsman, he respected Gordon. Without Doc Gordon, eleven men of the Cortez's platoon would have been killed in action instead of recovering on a hospital ship.

Digging, Sergeant Cortez recovered the down marine's gear. A USMC Designated Marksman M25 semiautomatic rifle with a broken scope, a rutt-sack, a notepad, a broken pencil, a K-bar knife, damaged field glasses, and a loaded AKS-74U.

There were only sixteen rounds of M118LR 30-caliber match grade rounds left in the magazine of the semiautomatic rifle. The five other magazines were empty.

"Sarge," Gordon yelled, "I need some type O Positive. Get me Gills and Chin, they are going to have to donate some blood or our boy ain't gonna make it. Also, have someone get me the backboard."

It took forever to move the marine onto the board, tape him up, and get some blood into the body. The marines moved the injured man into the Blackhawk and watched as it flew off.

Gordon walked to the radio.

"Mother Hen Three Two ... Mother Hen Three Two ... This is Devil Doc Alpha One Six. I am sending you an urgent. Crush trauma, multiple gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Subject unconscious, but breathing on own power. Marine, male, early twenties, blond hair, about six foot, malnourished. Name is Boiarskii, Vasilii, Six One Five Zero One One Nine Eight Five. Blood type O positive, I gave him a field transfusion from two live donors ten minute ago. Don't dare reclassify him as expected."

"... We are swamped."

"This marine is going up for an impact award. Expedite treatment. Verbal orders of Gunslinger One Five. Authentication Alpha Zulu Sierra Four Seven Five."

An impact award was a reward for an action so heroic that a senior officer has determined that it need not come up before an award board.

Sergeant Cortez looked at the corpsman in shock. He used the colonel's call sign and personal authentication code. Gordon signed off the network.

"What do you mean impact award? And how did you get ..."

"Christ, I know that you marines are stupid. How do you think corpsman expedited all those medivac flights? We don't sit around and say 'May I?' Doc Nix has the codes and the power to make that kind of call. I just operated the radios for Doc."

Doc Gordon opened his canteen and drank down a swig of warm water.

"That marine just saved us all from another attack and the folks on the ship were probably going to shove him aside and let him die with those injuries. No fucking way on my watch. He survived twenty-four hours in the rumble plus God knows how many bullets and pieces of shrapnel. I'm not going to let a fighter go down gently if he has a chance!"

"But... Marines can't lie."

"Sergeant, I am not a Marine. Navy corpsmen can and do all the time for the good of the service. We keep secrets and confidences so that we can do our job. However, if you must live up to the honor code - it ain't a lie if we write up the recommendation now and send it out with the other paperwork tonight. I guarantee that the colonel will sign off, especially once I tell Doc Nix what's up."

Doc Nixon was the chief petty officer in charge of all the corpsman assigned to the first battalion. He was the closest thing the marines in the first battalion had to a doctor without having to return back to a ship. The Doc's word on issues of health was law and not even the colonel would dare to argue.

Doc Gordon wrote up the citation for an impact award as Sergeant Cortez read Boiarskii's after action reports. They were textbook perfect. One half sniper's logbook, the other half looked like a CSI report dissecting the chaos of battle into understandable pieces. Facts were kept distinct from conclusions. It was textbook perfect down to the sketches.

_Christ, twenty two days alone in the middle of the hell, and he had to fall just four klicks from home. Ain't life all just effed up._

"Doc, hang the big one around the neck of our boy. He earned it."


	23. Meltdown in the Land of Wine and Cheese

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Meltdown in the Land of Wine and Cheese**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**For the first time in history since the rebuilding of Paris under the reign of Napoleon the Third, Paris, and by extension France, was being held hostage by rioters.

The old order failed when the acting president panicked and ordered the French police and armed forces to enforce order by any means necessary. Now not only were the rioters destroying the city, but police units and military units were fighting it out among themselves as individual units decided whether or not to obey the order to kill their own countrymen.

Everyday France was replaying a revolution that occurred two hundred twenty years ago. Instead of the blade of the guillotine cleanly slicing off the heads of royalty, the mob would pick out a victim and the rioters would beat the unfortunate soul to death with fist, clubs, picks, bricks, or whatever implement could be found.

Sheena Grossinger was in England, laying on a lumpy motel bed, watching her handiwork play out on the 24 hour cable news channels. Despite a lifetime in crime, she had never killed a person. Today she was a mass murderer. It did not matter if it was her fire, her fits, or the mob setting upon a random victim, she set up the dominos and let them fall. The random killing of innocents – It would forever stay in her mind.

Shego had long lost count of how many times she witnessed innocents dying on the screen of her television after President Gaël's punitive order. However, Fox News, Duesche Welt, BBC, and CNN all were citing causality estimates in the high tens of thousands.

The French labor unions, especially the warehouse employees and truck drivers, were ensuring that France was spiraling out of control by withholding most of the deliveries of food and other necessary supplies. Everyone else in the cities was fighting it out amidst a stream of refugees. The only things that being delivered were the materials necessary to keep the pot boiling and to provide the discontented masses raw materials for explosives.

In a nation of sixty million, the only people working were the media covering the event, the technicians at France's nuclear reactors ensuring that the media had enough electricity to keep the cameras rolling, the employees at the petrol-chemical and fertilizers plants to keep turning the ammonium-rich _merde_ and diesel bombs for the rioters to use, and isolated units of the French security services making the situation worse in trying to quell the unrest.

And yes, one can not forget the six henchmen needed to keep Drakken out of her hair.

All the plans were made, everything that Shego could do to ignite this social-economic collapse was done, and now all she could do was watch helplessly until some other events played out.

On the new, the talking heads on the BBC were talking about various EU units mobilizing, but she had trumped them. France did have a nuclear weapons program since she blasted the Bikini Atoll with an atom bomb in the early fifties. It was the blast that gave the new two piece swimsuit its name – the _bikini_.

When the French armed forces imploded, Shego made sure that one of her _factions_ made off with enough tactical nukes to back up a semi-bluff. She then leaked the information to the German media that some of the rioting military units had tactical nukes and would use them if the European Union stepped on the _Sacred Soil of le grand dame France_. The bluff worked, for now.

She did not intend for things to go that far. However, she did not have actual custody of the bombs either. If the faction decides to start sprouting out mushroom clouds, she could not stop them.

Shego knew that in the quest to win an ongoing battle between her and Team Possible, she went far beyond the unwritten rules that governed all their past meetings. She wanted to win. She wanted Kim to know that she won and that Kim did not stop her. She wanted to see...

What she wanted to see would never happen. Ron Stoppable was dead. After years of facing the red head, her respect went for the _buffoon_. Despite being on different sides of the fight, Shego and Ron Stoppable were kindred spirits. Despite the worst, both she and Ron would support their _bosses_ in taking over/saving the world.

Not today. Unless it was the second coming of Christ, the dead will not walk from their graves.

He would not come in and activate the self-destruction switch. There was no switch to stop this. Shego could not stop things, only speed things up so that the fire burnt itself out before consuming everything.

However, the fire had long burnt out Shego's claim to being human. Hitler once ordered one of his generals, Choltitz to burn the city. Now Choltitzact of defiancewent for not because Paris was, in essence, a third world nation in the midst of Western Europe.

Events moved now of the own accord until the moment that a new government will come in, reunite the people, pay off Shego's supporters, and Drakken will have a nation to run.

Personally, she figured that his life expectancy would be measured in minutes once she bowed out and retire to a vineyard in the Czech Republic. Shego would disappear in the chaos and become Sheena Hoffman, woman entrepreneur and maybe someday, have the life that was denied her by fate. However, it would be a lifetime spent in fear.


	24. Photoalbum

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Photo Album**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

Now it was far too late to end it all.

Thanks to the miracle of ultrasound, Kim knew that the life growing inside of her womb was no longer an _It_, but a little girl.

The doctors and her mom told her that the morning sickness would stop, that the mood swings will stabilize, but every morning things seem to get worse. Kim spent the past hour praying to the porcelain goddess for the remaining five months to hurry up.

Kim knew that she was driving her family away. Her father started working extra hours, supposedly to pay for the conversion of the attic into a nursery for the new baby. The Tweebs were taking their experiments and Rufus elsewhere to avoid her fickle wrath.

The only presence that did not pull the disappearing act in Kim's life seemed to be her mother. However, her mother was the acting Dean of the Middleton University Medical School and had other demands upon her time. Kim's mom could not stay by Kim's side twenty-four/seven.

Kim was now alone in a big empty house, trapped with nothing to distract her from her inner demons.

Video games ... Ron was the one who played them. All the save game slots had his name on them.

Television ... it was either the riots in France, or worse, the new war in Sudan that killed Ron.

Books ... Outside of medical textbooks, school work, or technical manuals, the family were not heavy readers. Ron had a personal library that was six times bigger than her entire family.

Rufus ... Rufus was still mourning the death of Ron. Kim could not face the pink naked mole rat without breaking into tears. Besides the Tweebs were using him as their number one test pilot, today.

Kim was perversely too tired and yet too wired to fall asleep.

On the bookshelves were a collection of the Possible-family photo albums. Kim was careful to only get the one that predated _him_.

It was a mistake.

Although there were no pictures of a certain blond-haired, money-phobic, boy, there was an indirect reminder of him. The photos were all Pre-Ron, Pre-Tweebs. Many of the photos were of Kim and her father.

Her father holding her in the hospital.

Her father trying to put the baby food in her mouth and the big mess that he made.

Her father trying to pinch his nose with one hand as he was changing her diapers with the other hand.

Her father holding her hands as she tried to take her first steps.

Her father presenting her with her first set of wheels, a tricycle.

Her father holding her hands around the big, red plastic bat showing her how to play tee-ball.

These would be the photo that her daughter will never have in her photo album. While the other girls would have a daddy to be there for ballet and piano recitals, Kim's daughter would grow up knowing her father only as a series of photographs and newspaper clippings.

_You killed him Kim._

Kim hated being alone. There was a voice in her mind that she wanted to deny. It was the voice that questioned the _Capital-T Truth_ that she had carefully erected to protect her dignity, her sense of self.

_It had to be Ron's fault!_

The drink, the loss of her virtue, the daughter growing inside of her – It all had to be his fault.

The great Kim Possible was not some drunken slut who spread her legs after three of four little shots of black currant vodka. If Kim was not a slut, then she had to be a victim. Therefore Ron had to rape her, otherwise Kim Possible, the perfect girl, would be no better then the village bicycle, the one that everyone had ridden.

_You made Ron your whipping boy since you first met. This time, you chased him away to die alone. You could not even go to his memorial service and face the fact that you sent him to die. Someone else might have pulled the trigger, but you set him on the path to the meat grinder._

_Ron raped me! I was a virgin ... I wanted to save it for my husband. He took it. He took it when we were drunk._

However, deep down, Kim knew that it was all a lie. She gave it to him more than once that night.

She panicked that morning. She wanted to deny what happened, but the pain, the blood, and the semen were proof positive that she had spent the night in drunken debauchery with her best friend. Kim was not some wild party floozy who banged an entire rock band or football team. Kim was Kim and Ron was ...

Ron was her sidekick, a peon in a subservient position. She was the boss. She was Team Possible. She should have never dated him. He was not even mid lunch table. Eric was perfect if only he was not a synthdrone.

Ron never fought back. He couldn't fight her. His life was about her.

_What do you know about him?_

_Everything_, she whispered to the voice inside her mind.

_Nothing_, the Truth whispered back, _Nothing that did not involve you in some way._

_Do you know his favorite color?_

_Do you know why he has fits and whimpers in his sleep?_

_Do you know what he sees and feels when he has nightmares?_

_Do you know his dreams, his hopes, his reason for sticking on despite being dumped upon by fate and more importantly by you?_

_Do you know why he left his parents' house the moment he turned eighteen?_

_Do you know why he just sometime stares off into space?_

_Do you even remember his birthday?_

_When was the last time you bought him a gift. No. You just have Wade just send him another videogame from Japan on his birthday and Christmas. You don't ever remember what you got him last Christmas._

"It's not like that..." Kim muttered.

_Go ahead, feel free to whisper me another lie, Kim._

Kim couldn't ...

_The Truth hurts_, the voice whispered, _Ron was there for you and you discarded him like a used condom the moment things became inconvenient because you could not handle your liquor._

_Look at the photo album Kim._

_Look at all the times your dad helped you._

_Look at how your daddy supported you and taught you to believe in yourself._

_Look at everything he did, everything he sacrificed just for you._

_Because of you, your daughter would have any of these things_

_She won't have someone to help her walk tall._

_She won't have a daddy to put together her tricycle._

_She won't have a daddy to show take photos of her first piano recital._

_She won't have a daddy to show her how to pay catch._

_She won't have a daddy to threaten her future boyfriends with a one-way trip to the nearest black hole._

"No!" Kim screamed. "My daughter does not need Ron. She is my daughter, not Ron's. I can do it all. I can breastfeed my own kid. I can change the diapers. I can teach her who to play catch and swing the bat. I am Possible and anything is possible for a Possible!"

_Even self-delusion, I see._

Kim hated being alone.

If it was Bonnie making these snide remarks, Kim would bitch-slap that bitch into a coma.

However, it was the voice in her head. It was the voice that undercut Kim's _Capital-T Truth_. Kim's _Capital-T Truth_ could not hold up to the voice questioning everything.

Kim just sat there in tears as the comfortable illusions were being stripped away by the truth she wanted to deny.

She killed Ron.

She broke his spirit and set him on the path to his death.

It was not a death. He died that morning. He died the moment she said, "I hate you!" The only thing that happened in Sudan was the fact that fate reunited Ron's body with his spirit.

_If Ron was here, he would be trying to tell me that it was all his fault. He would be trying to tell me to lay the blame on him. He would..._

However, Ron was dead. His body was blown to bits and whatever was left of him went to feed the vultures. Kim Possible would have to one day confessed to her daughter that she was responsible for the death her daughter's father.

Kim curled up in her bed.

She could make anything her _Capital-T Truth_ to be shared with the world at large, but she could no longer lie to herself anymore.

It was like that Halloween, the time she accidentally got stuck in the armor that responded to the surge in her adrenaline every time she lied. However, the price of the lie was not a mere grounding, but the destruction of her best friend and the future of her child.


	25. Unlucky Number 7

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Unlucky Number Seven**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

Captain John Redding, United States Army Medical Corps grew to hate this part of the day.

Everyday, the medical evacuation flights from the Middle Eastbrought in maimed and dying service personnel to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Once there was talk about closing down the place, but with the ongoing insurgency in Iraq and the new war in Sudan, there was a parade of wounded entering the facility on a daily basis.

Despite an influx of new nurses and military doctors from the states in the past several months, the facility was still severely short staffed for the demand placed upon it by the influx of wounded.

Today, there were forty-seven new patients including seven in critical condition.

Most of the injured were given some pain killers and antibiotics then sent off to Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment back in the states within a couple days on the next stateside medical evacuation flight. However, there were cases that could not wait for needed treatment.

It was Captain Redding job as the new _butcher_ in the emergency room to determine who would see the scalpel first and whose talents would be working on which patient.

Not even a couple years working as a paramedic on the rough streets of New York City during his time in medical school could prepare Captain for the horrific effect of supersonic projectiles on human flesh.

Pistols, the favorite firearms of New York's criminal underground,did not simply have the same level of destructive kinetic energy that a supersonic rifle round or mortar fragment packed. Mainly the injuries, thatthe staff sawcame from roadside improvised explosive devices throwing fragments around.

Today it was the Sudan's turn to bring in the flesh.

The last case looked the most hopeless of the lot. Boiarskii, Vasilii Alexovich, private, USMC, blood type O positive, and a serial number was hand-written on the wristband on his right wrist. Redding immediately dubbed Private Boiarskii _Unlucky Bastard Seven_. Number Seven was so injured that it was a miracle that he was not already sporting a toe tag and a box. Odds for his survival one hundred to one against.

The rules of triage were simple – Save the maximum number of lives. Those that are going to die anyways just took precious time from the ones who were going to live. The ones who were really bad off were just put aside and zapped will a lot of pain killers while the docs work on the others who had a shot at life.

Thus Unlucky Bastard Seven, the _Urgent_ was reclassifies as an _Expected_ – _Expected to Die_.

_Sorry private, you are going to have to wait for your turn. Corporal Taylor has to say goodbye to his leg first._

Dr. Redding took a grease pencil and wrote the number seven on Vasilii's wristband as he read the report from the hospital ship. This one was going to require just about everyone to patch him up. _If you manage to pull through, there will be no amputations in your future, this time_.

Sometimes, Redding would see what the staff called _repeat customers_. These were folks that made it through the first time, went home, got called back to war to only be nailed again. There was a rumor about a club of three-peats among the staff. _Probably true_.

Now it was time to stop prioritizing and start the cutting. Redding motioned for a nurse to come over to him.

"Nurse, prep numbers one through three for immediate surgery. Have Sergeant Diego redo the X-rays. The ones from the front are not good enough for reconstruction work. Patient One – amputation of right leg above knee. Patient Two – fragment and debris removal about the right ocular cavity. Patient Three is another amputation, left arm at the shoulder. Numbers four through seven will have to wait. Have Doctors Reinhold, and Miller report to one, Barbados and Schiller report to two, and Hander and I will work on three."

Doctor Redding went to operation theater number three to perform his forty-seven amputation in thirty-six days.

As he scrubbed his hands with the antibacterial soap, Redding wondered why he ever went to medical school. He spent eight years in college and several hundred thousand dollar to simply master what his grandfather, father, and uncles taught him during his summer job at the family butcher shop - Cut meat.

The unnamed nurse summoned two unnamed orderlies to wheel the unlucky ones to a nearby room. It would be a couple hour before someone could operate on them.

Unlucky number seven was hooked up to an array of machines and an IV tree full of fluidsto await for his turn.

Unlucky number seven was too injured to live, too stubborn to die. He was like a fish just flipped out of the water, his gills futilely gapping for oxygen, his body still trying to finds its way back to the cool life-giving waters.

Unlucky number seven just had to wait and accept the drugs and blood plasma entering his veins. It will have to be enough for now.


	26. Swearing Up a Storm

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Swearing Up a Storm**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**WARNING: LANGUAGE

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Doctor Possible watched helplessly as their oldest child rose up from the kitchen table and ran to the bathroom. Two seconds later, the sound of retching could be heard throughout the entire Possible household.

"Don't even think of making that comment," Mrs. Dr. Possible warned her husband of twenty years.

Mr. Dr. Possible managed to catch the unspoken threat despite the Y-chromosome demanding that he open his month, make the observation that his wife's morning sickness did not last so long as his daughter's, insert foot into mouth and close it.

Mr. Dr. Possible could only watch helplessly as his only daughter dealt with a difficult pregnancy.

Mr. Dr. Possible wanted to hurt someone badly... so badly he could taste the bile and blood in the back of his throat. He wanted to send the father of his future granddaughter on a one way trip to the nearest black hole.

However Ron Stoppable was dead. He was killed in the latest war in the Sudan during a roadside ambush. Being blown to bits by an antitank rocket was a nasty fate, but Mr. Doctor Possible wanted to personally launch Ron into orbit.

Today was Sunday. Normally, Sunday was Mr. Possible's day off, time to sleep in, play a little hanky with the wife, forget his job at the Middleton Space Center, and forget most of his weekday worries. Nevertheless, since Anne told him that Kim was expecting, Mr. Dr. P did not have a moment's rest.

Dr. James Possible and home improvements were too things went as well together as alcohol and driving. In the past, his wife would have simply hired Ron to do the minor stuff and would have hired a contractor if there was no other choice.

The ladies of the household were in nest building mode that occurred when one of them was expecting. In addition, Ron was ... unavailable to fix the problem he started at a party six months ago.

Not a day went by without Anne asking that he do something about the house.

Mr. Possible was surprised that he was not already killed in home improvement accident, although he had several close calls. Even with two respectable incomes, it was impossible to pay for the attic conversion if he had the contractors do all the work, so he had to cut cost, by doing all the _minor_ things like dry-walling, painting, and laying in the new laminate flooring.

It was an educational experience to know that while you are a rocket scientist and use to assembling rockets, you can't even begin to figure out those written in Sweden instructions that came with the assemble it yourself nursery furniture from Nordic Furniture. The shop names all their furniture in Norwegian with names like _Anschloss_. It probably meant _I am a big dumb American who can't find my ass with both hands, a road map, a compass, and a Sherpa guide._

Then when he finally was finished with a particular task, the women would choose another color or wall paper pattern and he would end up redoing the nursery.

Mr. Possible had to suffer this curse silently twice when it was his wife carrying his kids. Now he was really upset at Ron. A little upset for knocking up Kimmie-cub and making a beeline for the Marine Corps, but he was really upset because Ron successfully escaped the whole redoing the hose for the baby routine. James Possible hated being the cleanup guy for Ron's mistakes.

Today, Dr. Possible had to put down laminate flooring so that the plumber can install the fixtures in the new bathroom early tomorrow mourning.

The twins were not of any help to Mr. Possible. They had long figured out that if they screwed up the first task, that no one would think to ask them to do another. Despite nearly impaling himself on hand tools and exposed piping, Mr. Possible was not similarly excused.

Mr. Possible was peeved that his two sons managed to pull a fast on him. Mrs. Possible take Jim and Tim off the non-unionized laborer list and left him alone with the long list of _Honey Do These or I Don't Love You Anymore._ Today, the twins would be playing with some rockets at a friend's place or trying to pick up on some girls, while he worked.

_Maybe the twins will end up knocking up some other father's daughter and run to the Corps, leaving some other old fart like me to put up with the hormone queens._

Mr. Possible mutely finished his breakfast, rinsed off his dishes, and put them in the dishwasher. Now, it was not a good time for him to raise his wife's ire by leaving dirty dishes on the table. The demands of taking care of a single, pregnant daughter were cutting into his Anne time. While he was no longer a randy nineteen year old, he still had needs.

Today, he would have to buy vinyl flooring, tools, and figure out how to lay the floor down without killing himself. Thankfully the local _Orange_ _House in a Box_ was holding a home improvement seminar on the same topic. He planed to tape it and watch it as he did the work. According to the home improvement handbook, it should only take a couple hours, but Mr. Possible knew that a couple hours for the professionals meant a lifetime in frustration.

Mr. Possible was in a belligerent mode when he walked out to his car. Another car was blocking his driveway.

_It's probably another damn reporter. Goddamn tabloids!_

When his wife last went shopping, Anne spotted the one that implied that he was the father of Kim's baby. The lawyers were handling the lawsuit for libel, but the thought that someone accused him of being his grandchild's father still angered him. Of all the low down, nasty things that anyone could accuse him of, that was the worst lie.

Mr. Possible turned red as he held his breath for ten seconds trying to control the growing anger. He wanted to pull out the old family hunting rifle and use it on the bastard. It had not been fired since his father died six years ago, but James ensured that it was kept in the pristine operating condition that his father kept it in. So far all it took were deer, dall-sheep, elk, and mountain goats. Mr. Possible was seriously beginning to add _homo sapiens_ to the list of species killed.

_You can't take care ofyour familyfrom inside of a prison cell._

The inner voice in his head was right. Kim was doomed by fate to be a single mother and she needed the help of both her parents. The last thing the family needed was to have to slap another mortgage on the house to raise the cash to bail him out of jail.

The Stoppable family earned his hatred most of all. When he confronted his former pal, Mr. Stoppable, about the fact that they were going to be grandparents, Mr. Stoppable merely told Mr. Possible that Ron was not really his son and that he was actually glad that the _ungrateful bastard_ was now scavenger food. It took his wife to prevent him from killing Mr. Stoppable on the spot. While Mr. Possible was not fond of Ron at the moment, Ron did not deserve that comment.

Dr. Possible hated the world. Dr. Possible hated the reporters. Dr. Possible hated the Stoppables. Dr. Possible hated the Corps for letting Ron Stoppable die before he had his chance to punish the bastard that did... that did this to his family. Most of all he hated Ronald Dean Stoppable or whatever name he was using before he died.

Dr. Possible removed the keys from his pocket. The thought was juvenile, something that his kids would considered infantile, but Dr. Possible was seeing red.

"Sir, do you need us to move our car?"

The speaker managed to interrupt Dr. Possible train of thought before he started to key the car.

Dr. Possible looked up. There were three men. Two in Marine Corps dress blues and one in a naval uniform.

"Get the fuck away from my family, you sons of a bitch."

"Sir."

"You just had to send the father of my unborn granddaughter to die in some African shit hole. You couldn't even send him to the Middle East. At lest there, he could die for oil, something of some value. No you had to have him play cop in Sudan. For what, a bunch of savages fighting over what god to pray to. Because of you, I will have to tell my granddaughter that her daddy died for nothing important. Get out."

"Sir, I ..."

Dr. Possible, once Private First Class James Andrew Possible, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) called upon the memory of an old school retired NCO chewing out some deserving bastard. Now that he was a civilian, he launched into his own interpretation of that speech.

"Don't sir me you one point higher than a horse so you don't shit in the middle of the street marine. I work for a living. Take the sir shit and shove it up you ass. Since you are apparently dumber than the second johns out of Hudson High that I had to deal with in my youth... let me rephrase my displeasure in terms you all can understand. Find a corporal, bend over, shove your commissions up your ass, and have him demonstrate why boot camp was call boot camp in the good old days.

"Get that fucking piece of shit out of here before your oil leak ruins my spotless driveway, so I can go to the fucking hardware store, where I can fucking buy the shit, so I can fucking finish converting my attic into a frigging nursery for the daughter of a kid you expended for shit. You got twenty seconds before I go postal."

"Sir ..."

"You got fifteen seconds, run."

"Sir, I have ..."

"What part of get out don't you understand, boy? Get your head out of your can't cunt commanding officer's ass, stop begging for a damn purple heart because you got a paper cut on your shit-coated tongue when you were licking the god-damned stamp ... find your fucking keys, drive that piece of shit out of here, and leave my family in peace. Go look for cannon fodder elsewhere. Seven seconds."

Dr. Possible went into the garage and looked for the heavy hammer that he bought for the demolition phase of the damn attic project. He was going to make them leave, one way, or another. He had all he could stand and knew that he was nowhere near sane at the moment.

"Sir..."

"Drop dead you shit for brains."

A female voice cut through the tension.

"James Andrew Possible, how could you use such language?"

His wife's comment cut through the insanity gripping his mind. She liked it when he talked dirty in bed, but in public... Tonight, his hand was going to be his best friend.

"Honey..."

"Shut up. Guy's, I apologize for my husbands bad manners."

"No problem, Mrs. … Dr. Possible. I came over, because we got more news about your friend Vasilii Boiarskii."

"Good or bad?"

"Both. May we come inside?"

"You can. The Neanderthal I married can't enter until he washes his filthy mouth out with soap."

_Better get the razor ready, I am going to be shaving my palms for a long time._

Mr. Possible sputtered as the three men walked into his house and left him stranded. They still haven't moved their _damned_ car out of his way.


	27. Life is an absurd comedy skit

Ron's Worst Nightmares

Life Is an Absurd Commedy Skit

By Pat Squared

Kim Possible did not know how to describe the emotions when Captain Reynard, United States Marine Corps, told her and her mother that Ron or Vasilii Boiarskii was wounded in the line of duty and badly hurt, but still alive.

It was as if God answered her prayers for a second chance until the captain told her that Ron was in a coma and not expected to wake up anytime in the near future. Ron was alive and yet would not be alive.

The captain had little in ways of particulars, just the printout of an email from some US Navy commander assigned to the US Naval Bureau of Personnel.

All that Kim knew was that Ron was in some German hospital living only because a machine did all his breathing for him. Therefore, instead of a gravestone or a photo, all that Kim would be able to show her daughter was the shell of her father being devoured by some clunky machine.

Her mom made some phone calls and used the physician network to get a better idea of what was happening to Ron. When her mom did not even bother to put some positive spin to her comments after the phone calls were concluded, Kim knew that Ron was hurt inreally bad way.

Kim hated God at the moment.

God set up the dominos and watched as Ronald Dean Stoppable and Kimberly Anne Stoppable participated in a perversewaltz of self-destruction. When one reached out the other would not be in position to save the other.

It was like two waltzers dancing in a ballroom. The band is playing and the onlookers was watching, yet each dancer danced alone. For far too long, Kim let her pride blind her to the fact that she choose to dance alone. Now that pride was gone, the other dancer was gone leaving Kim alone on the ballroom floor.

God taunted her by dangling her salvation before her and then ensuring that Ron would never be able to forgive Kim for all the things that she did to him.

Worse, because of the situation in France, there were no direct flights to continental Europe.

Her parents citing her condition and the fact that Ron would not even know that she was there forbade her to go.

Kim knew that logically her parents were right, but her need to atone, to confess her sins, and begs Ron's forgiveness was overwhelming. Her daughter needed a father and Kim would be damned if she let Ron slip away again.

Kim just went to her room, grabbed all her credit cards, her passport, threw some clothing and toiletries inside a carry-on bag. She simply called Monique and had Monique drive her to the airport.

To fly to Germany required that Kim max out her credit cards. She had to take a Southwestern Airways flight to Los Angeles, transfer to Philippines Airlines flight to Manila via San Francisco and Hawaii. She would have to spend a night in Manila, where the atmosphere was so thick with diesel soot that she ate auto exhaust every time she tried breathing.

From Manila, she took a flight to Dubai via Bangkok on United Arab Emerate Airlines. There she would spend another night before taking Lufthansa and landing in Berlin, Germany. Worse all the flights were on coach and she used up the supply of barf bagseverycursed flight.

Three days to accomplish what would have ordinarily an eight hour flight all because of unrest in France. _God Damn French!_

After surviving all that, she had to deal with driving a rental car on the infamous German autobahn.

While she was an expectant mother, Kim was not use to being looked at like she used to look at little old ladies in the fast lane. Even at one hundred fifty kilometers or ninety miles per hour, everyone including the nuns was racing by her in a blur. They were probably cursing at the stupid American bitch who threw her best friend away.

Kim Possible suffered all of this to only be turned away at the hospital.

SinceKim was not listed as an authorized dependant, the officer at the hospital told her that the military would not be able to admit her to see Ron. She should have known that the military frowns on unauthorized dependents living overseas.

That hurt the most. Not even the airsick was so bad.

Kim was carrying Ron's child and the hospital stafftold her that neither Kim nor her unborn child was not authorized as Ron's dependants and thus less than human in the eyes of the bureaucracy. Kim just sat on the steps outside the main entrance.

Kim had no place to go.

Her credit cards were maxed out, so that she could not rent a room. She did not have enough money to even think of buying the return ticket home. She had not done any missions in German or Eastern Europe so she had no favors to call in. She flew three-quarters of the way around the planet and ended up alone.

It was all she can do to not break down and brawl like a three-year-old in public. Kim stood up, walked towards her parked rental car, knowing that God was already giving her a taste of Hell. The bureaucrats ensured that this would be a situation worthy of an absurd British comedy. However, Kim Possible was not laughing at her role in this real life comedy skit.


	28. Object Lesson

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Object Lesson**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**_Once you defeat a man, you have to defeat him for the rest of your life._

Shego did not know who uttered that truth, but now it governed her life.

She had lost her temper and turned one of her co-conspirators into an object lesson. She would never forget the screams, the look of horror, and the smell of burnt flesh.

"My way or you all will go the way of Monsieur Poincare!"

The challenge was made. The gauntlet was thrown down. Shego could not unsay those words or take back her actions. She had personally killed a man. A despicable man who gloated as his countrymen reverted back to savagery, sure. Nevertheless, Poincare was a living breathing human before Shego thoughtlessly lashed out and burnt him alive.

The object would hold for a few days, even a week before fear stopped paralyzing the minds of her cohorts. Then they will lash back. Shego would have to make another object lesson and another until ... One will always arise to proclaim that the empress should be thrown down and forced to atone for crimes against the people. Shego knew that she proved herself a danger to the group and the pack would band together to pull her down.

It was almost time to bow out, to disappear, and watch Dr. Drakken live a flawed dream.

_Blue boy would not even make it through his first day._

However, bowing out would be even more dangerous.

She was the only one who could manage the restoration of France. She knew where all the bodies were buried, who was capable, and who was dangerous. She planed on simply disappearing, letting the others know that to hunt her was to court the release of evidence implicating her hunters to the coup. Now they would hunt her down, no matter what the cost.

Shego now could not simply disappear into the masses of refuges.

Once Global Justice linked her to the takeover of France, there would be no where safe for her to hide. At least Osama Bin Laden had friends in the tribal belt of Pakistan and Afghanistan who could hide him from the world.

Shego had no where to run. When she burnt Poincare, she burnt the last of her bridges.

Now she was all alone. Shego stopped wearing the form fitting jumpsuits and started wearing normal clothing. She managed to hide the truth from everyone but herself. She was pregnant.

When they turned against her, Shego would not mind dying if it was just her. It would have been other challenge to win.

Now she had another life to consider. Being dead meant that her child would be dead. Being caught meant that they would take her child away from her and give it away. Her child would be forced to live the life of a freak without having someone who understood to guide him or her away from all the bad choices and bad things that she did.

Shego now could not see her way out. She would have to maintain power. She would have to keep the terror fresh in the minds of her opponents. She would have to stay and play the game so her child would have a mother and a chance.

Shego would have to defeat the world.

It would be a losing battle and one day she would be posing for rifle fire.

After a revolution, the first ones to be executed are the revolutionaries. The hyenas will tear her down in due time. Alexander the Great, Julius Creaser, Qin Shi Huangdi – They changed the known world, they crush enemies, they built an empire, but in the end they were torn down as their nations and empires went on. She could only hope to stay on top long enough to allow her child a chance.

Shego's dreams of retiring to a vineyard and being Frau Hoffman died with the Poincare's screams.


	29. Welcome to the Afterlife

Ron's **Worst Nightmares**

**Welcome to the Afterlife**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**_Follow the light._

Ron knew that he was dead the moment he saw the light. It was just like what those survivors said on those shows talking about near death experiences.

It was painful like staring at a spotlight after spending time in the dark. However he was afraid of what could happen if he turned his back on the light. He moved towards the light, but it never seemed to get closer.

Here there was no up or down. Nothing to reference. Occasionally the light would slightly shift left and right.

Then the light went off leaving Ron alone in the darkness.

Ron knew then where he was going to spend eternity.

There were no flames, no imps with pitchforks, no three headed mutt to guard hell.

Ron could not feel anything. There was no heat or cold. There was no gravity or sound. There was no air yet he did not suffocate. There was no hunger or feeling.

They simply left him in the dark.

Eternity – forever, infinity. The months since he destroyed his life seemingly lasted forever, yet they were not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an eye blink compared to his stay in the darkness.

Ron could not tell if his eyes were open or shut. However, he _knew_ that he was not with his body. If Ron was alive, he would feel the pain. Ergo, Ronald Dean Stoppable/ Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii was as dead as last week's expired fish.

Ron knew that he was doomed to remain in the darkness forever. The fire and brimstone Christian hell had nothing on this prison. There he would receive stimuli.

Here he waited knowing that soon his mind would turn in upon itself.

Ron waited. Slowly he could feel his mind slipping away. He grasped at the little things. The little memories, something that could be used as a mantra to scare away the demons stealing his thoughts.

_A little madness. Taste it. Accept it and you would be lonely anymore._

However, it was fate that he would be lonely. It had to be. Fate gave him a final chance at salvation and he pissed it away on one drunken night. The night of the Bacchus Festival, the night he took his best friends virginity, the night he proved that he was just as evil as his ancestors.

His real great-grandfather, _Strumbannführer_ (Storm Unit Leader or Major) Schlosser was Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) officer who willingly lead his _Einsatzgruppen Sonderkommandos_ in enacting the Final Solution for _Der Führer_ in Estonia. Schlosser, the son of a jägermeister, was known for his recreational _two-legged _hunts of enemies to the Reich and his rule of going for the head on every hunt.

Vasilii enjoyed hunting two-legged game just like his _Schultzstaffel_ ancestor. He even hunted his targets going for the head, even though the body would have been just as effective and more certain. When the Russians where moving through Estonia, _Strumbannfuhrer_ Schlosser turned down the chance to return to Berlin, but instead took his _Mauser Karabiner 98_ and walked toward the Soviet line to take part in _Der_ _Endgültige Jagd_, the final hunt. Hearing his mother tell him the story, Vasilii as a child could not understand why his ancestor chose death.

Now as a killer himself, Ron now knew exactly why. After the hunt, there was nothing to live for, nothing that would make a man ever feel alive. The hunt was stronger than any drug, any soft curve, or any other transient pleasure. For once you have tasted death; to live one must drink deep draughts.

Even here in the darkness, he could still recall the arousal of the kill, the conversion of a life into a grey and pink mist.

Going back, evil ran in his blood from the Schlosser to the Teutonic Knights that virtually enslaved the local population during the middle ages probably to Cain, the first murderer, himself.

His step-parents used him to replace their real son who died in a swimming pool accident. They made Vasilii Boiarskii act like, talk like, and pretend to be Ronald Dean Stoppable. Whenever they felt that he did not play his role or just for kicks they would beat him ... just because.

Zorpox was the _intellectual_ side of all the hatred floating inside his blood. Zorpox was the part of Ron that allowed him to plan, to be more efficient in Ron's role as monster. During the long walk, Zorpox help Ron prepare his ambushes so that Vasilii could enjoy the sickeningly sweet process of converting life into meat.

Zorpox, Vasilii Boiarskii, and the _Innocent_ Ron Stoppable made up the triangle of identities that was his soul. It was this combination that cursed him to this existence.

What Ron Stoppable wanted to deny, now he accepted as _gospel truth_.

Kim and the Stoppables were right to destroy his spirit all those years. They unknowingly protected the world from another generation of evil. Now that he was dead, the evil that ran through his bloodlines would not taint another generation.

Hell – Here was his salvation! Here was his damnation. Here he would wait forever in peace knowing that he could not hurt the ones he loved anymore.

The darkness would be the price that he would willingly pay to protect the world from the darkness within his soul.


	30. Mirror Images

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Mirror Images**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Kim awoke in a small, strange bed three-quarters of the way around the world from her home. Her clothes were gone, replaced by a thick bathrobe.

The room was painted in a yellowing white and was quite small.

By the door was a chest. On top of the chest was a small basin, a hand towel, and a pitcher of water.

Looking around, Kim spotted a battered, antique writing desk and a sitting stool. On the desk where two pens, a shelf of blank papers, and a small black book.

Slowly getting up to avoid triggering another round of nausea, Kim made her way to the book. Opening it, Kim glanced down.

Kim's German skills were limited to quotes she picked up from the anti-Nazi propaganda films made in the nineteen-forties. She tried mouthing some of the text, but she could only manage to figure out every other word.

"Good morning Mrs. Possible."

The voice caused Kim's heart jump out of her chest.

Turning around only compounded the nightmare.

The speaker was Ron's doppelganger. The only differences were the accent, the clerical vestments, the glasses, the blue eyes, and thirty years of age. If it was not for the eye color and the fact that she was still pregnant, Kim Possible would have wondered if she feel asleep for thirty years.

"I am sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Possible. I am Wolfgang Arnsberg-Schlosser, the pastor of this church. However, my wife, Anna, insisted that I came by to tell you that breakfast is ready."

Schlosser's accent did not sound like the archetypical German accents the actors used in the movies. He sounded more American Midwestern than European.

_Sick and Wrong!_

Fate seemed to torment her. Every time she tried to make things right, fate would slap her in the face. Steeling herself, Kim followed _Father_ Schlosser to the kitchen.

For Kim, seeing Anna Schlosser was like starting at her mom, no like at herself thirty years into the future.

Kim looked around and saw family photos lining the walls. They showed everything from marriages, kids, grandkids, and graduations. The photos show Kim the life that she would have had if she did not thrown Ron away in an attempt to preserve her self-image.

Looking at the happily married couple interacting was like watching the _Twilight Zone_ play out in real life.

Then the nausea hit and Kim hit the floor.

Kim woke up the room. Anna Schlosser was staring at her. Kim did not want to see anymore of the Schlosser family. They represented a life that Kim did not deserve.

"_Frau Doktor_ Mueller told me to tell you that your child is okay, but that you are to stay in bed until it's time to deliver. Bed rest, no excuses."

"But ..."

"No buts. I moved your things from the car into the closet. However, do not get out of bed. If you need to use the loo or the water closets, call out for me."

Anna's accent was closer to an English accent than the stereotypical German accent heard on the movies.

Anna continued, "I found you in the church asleep on one of the pews. You were ... troubled, yelling and screaming in you sleep. Although it's spring, it's still winter weather. The church is not warm ... too cold for a mother to be. Do you have someone I could call - The baby's father perhaps."

Kim could only shake her head no. How could she explain to a total stranger about her shame? How could she?

However, Anna slowly dragged out the story from the expectant mother. Even the little bits and pieces that Kim could not believe that resided in her memories were shared with a woman that Kim only met a few hours ago.

After Kim's confession, Anna jutted out her lower lip and let out half a breath to blow a stray auburn bang out of her eyes. To Kim, it was scary to see two women from opposite sides of the globe act like twins.

"_Mein Gott en Himmel._ I can not promise you a specific day, but we will get you in to see your lover. How can those _Schweinehunds _tell a mother to be thather daughter is unauthorized? Unauthorized_ Erzaehle mir nicht so einen mist_.

"God himself authorized your child at the moment of conception. My husband, he is the _de facto_ head if the _Evangelical_ community in Landshut. The last time those _Korinthenkackers_ dare jerks us around ... _Dummkopf. Der Teufel wird los sein._ The bodies had to be stacked like wood."

Kim knew that she would not find any of those German phrases in a tourist travel guide. Anna was on the verge of a full blow temper tantrum. Then Anna stopped and smiled at Kim.

"After this, I am going to teach you how to curse properly. English is good for a lot of things, but German is best for cursing. To English ears, they think we are going to behead them every time we ask for a fag. Those _Dussel_ are weak. You start swearing in German and doors will open."

Kim could only imagine the little middle age woman bossing around all those big orderlies in the hospital. Anna's right eyebrow lifted in an all too familiar poker tell. Kim knew that Anna had a sneaky ploy.

"Your man ... How do you get him to ... do what you want? Without cursing, I mean."

Kim just could not resist the invitation. For the first time in generations, Kim broke the family rule and showed someone she had just met how to pull off the trademarked puppy dog pout.

"Mein Gott. No man stands a chance. I have to practice. Wolfgang, he keeps on forgetting to pick up my stuff from the store. Thanks to you, I don't have to swear, curse, and kick him anymore. Let us start with my favorite curse. I used this one a lot when I was your age. Repeat after me. _Dir hat wohl einer in's Hirn geschissen und vergessen zu ziehen!"_

"_Dir hat wohl einer in's Hirn geschissen und vergessen zu ziehen!_ May I ask what that means?"

Anna Schlosser smiled at her new friend and said, "Apparently someone shit in your skull and forgot to flush!"

"_Dir hat wohl einer in's Hirn geschissen und vergessen zu ziehen!_ I wished I knew that one back in high school. Long story, but Bonnie was always a class 'A' toilet head. Where did you master swearing?"

"_Mein Vatter_ was _Kreigsmarine_, Navy. Also I spent twenty years in the _Bundeskrimminalalt_. Kind of like your FBI. Too bad the vermin are _Dummkopf_. They can't make up a decent curse, but they sure do appreciate a good one. One you get them laughing, getting answers is all too easy.

Kim, once the girl who could do anything, smiled for the first time since the day she destroyed Ron.

The two women started on the road to friendship.


	31. Message and the Box

**Ron's Worst Nightmare**

**Message and the Box**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Kim Possible wept as she looked down on the still form of the father of her unborn child.

Ron Stoppable was surrounded by machines keeping his body breathing and his heart beating. Kim knew that this was the end result of fifteen years of friendship and a single moment's rage. Although Kim did not fire the bullets or cause the rubble to collapse on Ron, she _knew_ that she was responsible for Ron's fate.

The doctors did not want to tell her anything at first, but Pastor Schlosser simply used the _Evangelich Network._

Unlike the Catholic church with its formal hierarchy and its own intelligence service based out of the Vatican, the _Evangelich_ or Lutherans had an informal worldwide network of friendships and in certain cases family linkages that allowed Lutheran ministers to communicate with their counterparts around the world. Pastor Schlosser simply contacted Major Walter Mortimer, a US Army Chaplain and ordained Lutheran Pastor assigned to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

It was Major Mortimer who managed to cut through all the red tape so that Kim could visit Ron.

After traveling three quarters of the way around the globe and dealing with an entrench bureaucracy, Kim now knew just how hopeless things truly were.

Ron was legally alive. His heart still beat inside his chest and his lungs still functioned. However, there was no reaction to virtually any stimuli. The doctors keep saying that Ron was a six on the Glasgow Coma Scale or more accurately an E2V1M3. The doctors told her that Ron had severe head trauma and might not make it.

However, the doctors stress thatit was a miracle that he end survived long enough to make it to be evacuated, let alone survive the multiple surgeries. Over fifteen bullet fragments and numerous other pieces of foreign matter had to be removed from Ron's body. Ron was strong and his body was fighting on.

However the worse injuries were caused by the rubble crushing his already weaken body.

The reports, Kim knew would fuel her nightmares tonight and for many nights afterwards. In the back of Kim's imagination, Ron was badly hurt and buried alive. He was inneed of her help and she was not there when he needed her the most.Kim shuddered at the image.

It seemed the only part of Ron that was not under some sort of bandaging were his hands and forearms. Every other part was wrapped up like an Egyptianmummy and attached to half a dozen pieces of machinery and IV lines.

No one knew if, let alone predict whenRon would wake up.

Only the occasional beep and hiss of the respirator broke the suffocating silence of the hosptial room.

Then a deep voice violated the silence.

"Misses B, he would not wish you to cry. Seeing him like this is not a memory that he would want you to carry for the rest of your life."

Kim turned around and wanted to yell at the deep voice that violated her time with Ron. However, it was a dark-skinned, middle-aged, one-legged Marine sitting in a wheelchair with a handmade wooden box on his lap.

"Sorry ma'am. They told me that Boiarskii's wife, you were here. I would stand but the butchers here took my leg to feed the local werewolves and they have not gotten around to giving me my peg leg."

The man was obviously in good spirits despite losing his leg, however the tone quickly grew somber.

"Your husband, Private Vasilii Boiarskii, gave up everything a man could sacrifice to save us.

"The sad part was that none of us really knew him until it was too late."

The marine held his breath for a minute as if hee was making a terrible decision. With the exhale, the decision was made to continue.

"The Sudanese Islamic Militia, or SIM's,were sending waves of drugged up maniacs to attack our position since dawn. To keep them out of the fire base, we were burning up our ammo and we were starting to run low. Every time we knocked down one attack, another would come We did not have really any time to take care of the wounded ... we were to busy melting our machine gun barrels trying to hose down another human wave attack.

"Boiarskii, turned out that his squad was wiped out while one a routine anti-IED patrol.Everyone thought that he was blown to bits when the SIM's ambush the Humvee with a couple RPG's. However, he managed to walk, crawl, run, whatever back towards our base camp. That alone took some major guts.

"Boiarskii was alone, just a couple minutes run from the base when he saved us. There was a large crowd being spurred on by the mullahs to attack the infidels. We all could smell the _burning rope. _Another bunch of Sim's were drugging themselves up for the final push. We knew that they were going to come for us. Higher ups told us that the Navy just sent a dozen plus choppers inbound with ammo, reinforcements, and supplies. However, they were half an hour out. We did not have even five minues, let alone thirty.

"Suddenly, we heard a shot and all hell broke loose.

"Boiarskii found a place to make his stand and start taking out the mullahs and the leadership. He kept them busy long enough for reinforcements and supplies to arrive. The SIM'sused everything they had trying to take him down. However, he just kept on going like the damn bunny in those battery commercials. Even when the building was rubble, he kept on firing until ..."

The marine suddenly stopped.

Kim asked, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry ... I can't help myself for being emotional sometimes. If it was not for him, a lot of us would be dead, instead of returning to the land of the Big PX. I am the last of the lot still over here who witnessed your husband pull off a miracle. The docs told me that I was to head out on today's flight so they could fit me with an American made peg-leg. However, I wanted to have someone relay our personal thanks and to give him this."

The marine grunted as he lifted a heavy cardboard box.

"Ma'am, it's too heavy for you to carry. Have someone help you, but make sure he gets it."

Kim asked, "What is inside?"

"It's a dog tag from each life he saved. Also in there is a _Get Well_ card from all the Marines that were here and able to sign, and a letter describing the significance of this box. This box has been held in succession by five different Marines, each one of us owes his life to your husband. I now surrender it to your care, Mrs. Boiarskii."

Kim was stunned. Ron had risked his life many times for her in the past, but no one ever though of him as a hero.

"Each dog tag represents father returning home to his children, a husband returning to his wife, or a child returning to his parents. It is the restored futures of one hundred twenty seven Marines and Navy corpsmen that otherwise would have been lost if Vasilii did not break up the enemy's attack on our compound.

"Should Vasilii muster for the final guard, show your child the box, show your child the names of those he saved, tell your child that its father died not for glory, duty, riches, or vengeance, but sacrificed his life so that we may live."

"It's never about the medals or the parades, it about helping those you love. To us he was just the new face in the battalion mess. To the marines of the First of the Fifth, he was just Vee, _Dumbo,_ _Fresh Meat_, or _New Boy_.

"Before all the insanity, I only got a chance to speak to him once when he reported in-country. The word from his platoon sergeant was that he was a quiet marine and did his job without having to be asked. He was a natural with a rifle, scored a possible on our qualification. He did not rattle, but just would hunker down and do the job. It seemed that he did not have any friends on this world, but he would help any marine in need.

"Boiarskii was so average that he kind of blended into the landscape. When he awake, tell him that there are a hundred twenty seven marines and corpsmen whom would unhesitatingly would follow him if he ever decided to storm the gates of hell. We are proud to be his friends."

The proud marine started sobbing and his hands started trembling.

"Misses Boiarskii, your husband is something special. When he wakes up, he will need you. Not as some kind of nurse's aid, but as a companion.

"Combat is a hell that no veteran can ever describe to someone who has not experience it. Fear, arousal, anger, love, hate, brotherhood, rage – he has felt and experience things that were not meant for men to feel. There will be times that he will be distant, times that he can not connect with the world. Don't hate him for that. Don't hate your husband for having some part of his life that you can not understand. It is better if you don't try to understand, but just accept the moments of joy that he, hopefully, will share with you in the future and thank God for all the moments of joy that you two have shared in the past.

"Boiarskii was living proof that the Kingdom of God is not in the heaven, but on earth, living inside of each and every one of our hearts. Goodbye, Mrs. Boiarskii. I am sorry, but I have to report to patient out-processing."

"What is your name," Kim asked the crying marine.

"Gunnery Sergeant Tyrone Wilson, ma'am.

"Thanks to your husband, I'll soon be back in Louisianna doing the Lord's work and hopefully soon be commanding a pulpit. Should you need anything, write us. NCOIC, Headquarters, First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, First Marine Expeditionary Force – Your letter will find us anywhere in the world. Vasilii was one of us. In the Corps, we are family and family stick together no matter what. _Semper Fi.Oorah!_"

With those words and tears streaming from his eyes, the Marine turned his wheelchair around and rolled out the door.

Kim was upset. She did not want the box. She did not want to carry the responsibility that came with the box. Over one hundred lives ...

Kim did not want any of this. She only wanted her best friend back. She wanted to go to the lake and play _water assault _with Ron like they did at age six. She wanted to lie next to Ron like when they were teenagers watching some cheesy monster flick. She wanted see his goofy smile and chocolate brown eyes light up with they play _tickle wars_. She wanted to mess up his messy hair. She wanted to dance with him like they did at Prom, even if he stepped on her feet half the time. There was some much she missed, so many memories that Kim wanted to relive with Ron.

However, her unborn daughter would wish to know that her daddy was more than just the sidekick or buffoon or the distraction. In case Ron ... in case Ron did not make it, his daughter should know that her father's death was not in vain.

Kim wept.


	32. Global Justice Watches

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Global Justice Watches**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Dr. Betty Director shook her head as she looked at the wall of monitors in Global Justices Main Surveillance Room. Although it was midnight here, every senior Global Justice leader was at the table.

One of them was a quiet, mousey looking woman wearing tattered clothing. She was a member of the faceless network of Global Justice Sentinels. Unlike agents whose job it was to locate and arrest, the Sentinels specialized in long-term intelligence gathering and sabotage. Many a time, a Sentinel would slip in and rewire the villain's doomsday device so that it would fizzle out. They would find the who, what, where, why, and how. They were the tracking hound that sniff out the small clues that built the big picture.

Many of the younger agents were awed to actually see a legendary Sentinel. They were the stuff of myth and legend. They were always watching everyone, friend and foe alike. The constant hyper-vigilance created a tension that almost could be tasted.

Dr. Director was sitting as the mousey lady took her place at the briefing podium.

"My nom de guerre is Claudette Borges. I have served since the beginning as the Master Sentinel for Western Europe. Everyone here has watched as my country fell into savagery on television."

"This was not the _perfect storm_. This implosion was not the congruence of a general strike, a military coup d'état, and foolish leaders who turned a general strike into a street war. Those were elements of a plan, a highly coordinated plan."

The screen flashed and showed a surveillance photo.

"The two at the heart of the plan is this Dr. Drakken and his partner, Shego. For years, Shego was content to let Drakken make his plans, wait for Team Possible to arrive, have a brief fight with the leader of the Possible team, and then spring Dr. Drakken and herself out of whatever prison they were sent.

"Drakken was and still is an imbecile. However we have underestimated Shego for far too long. She was the one who put together the plan. According to my sources inside the enemy camp, Shego originally planned on giving Drakken France and then retiring with a win on her record. However her actions of late show that she is consolidating power for herself. She had a plan and allies in plan for the establishment of a puppet government. Her allies will soon come in, reestablish order, save Europe from the terrible calamity. But at what price? She will have nukes, 60 million subjects, and a United Nations veto."

The mousy lady cleared her throat.

"I know that we French are not liked. Sometimes, I do not like my countrymen either. However, this Shego has shown a dangerous talent of destabilizing entire nations. Not one of those third world things called a nation, but a western European nation. Should Shego decide to add England, Germany, or Spain to her list of conquests, Europe, the concept of the European community will forever fall.

"I have been out of the loop for so long trying to ensure that my network is safe. However, I beg of you. If you cannot arrest Shego, she must be dealt with or the other villains might take up the regime change. Stop this obscenity."

Dr. Director looked at the impassioned Sentential. However, her hands were tied. Global Justice was a law enforcement agency. While it had some former military special operations personal on its payroll, Global Justice did not have the resources or inclination to invade a nation, fight house to house.

Nor was GJ some kind of shadowy organization of assassins. Global Justice had a few agents who unfortunately had to take a life in the line of duty, but it was not Murder Incorporated.

The Germans would not invade since the French military threaten to use nukes the moment the first German soldier crossed the French-German border. In addition, the other continental European nations did not want to see German Panzer Divisions do a repeat of 1940. It would forever guarantee that the new EU defense force would be forever dominated by the Germans.

The Belgians and the Dutch did not have the manpower to conduct an invasion, nor would not allow German to use the low countries as its invasion route into France at Germany did in both World Wars.

The English – The Royal Navy could cut off seaborne traffic and interdict aircraft, but Brittan did not have the manpower to invade and pacify France. The other European nations simply did not have the logistic capability or leadership that was needed to run a regime change operation.

The Russians – No one in the former Eastern Bloc would permit Russian troops to travel through their countries. Besides, the Russian army was fighting mini-wars with the Chechens.

Only the United States had the manpower and logistics capability to invade France.

However, with the United States military in the Middle East, Sudan and the Horn of Africa, plus steps up operations off the coast of Korea, there was no way the United States military could save France. They were spread too thin.

In the past, Global Justice would call upon Team Possible. However, Kim was pregnant and Ron was lying in a coma in a US Military hospital in Germany. No other agent ever managed to stand toe to toe with Shego and survive without a trip to the ER.

Whatever happens, Dr. Director vowed that there would be no next time. From now on there would be no more restraint. Shego was too dangerous to be left alive. If Global Justice could not arrest Shego, they would have to kill her. The only question was how.

_There will not be a next time. I will never be stuck waiting for someone else to save the world._


	33. Resurrection Man

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Resurrection Man**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Ron Stoppable had spent an eternity in the darkness.

Once he hated the night. As a child, Ron could always keep busy during the day. However, the nightmare came every night.

The shrinks told his step-parents that he was too young to realize what happened and soon the nightmare would fade.

The nightmares never faded away.

The nightmares only grew more intense as years of physical and emotional abuse crushed his spirit. Experiences like that summer in Camp Wannawept being locked with the camp mascot in cabin 13 only added more variety to his nightmares. Just enough so that his mind would not become so jaded.

_They were staring at him. They were accusing him._

_His mother's and sister's worm-gnawed eyes asked him why he was still living when they had to die._

_Mrs. Stoppable drunkenly yelling at him, "Why did my real Ronnie-poo have to die? You are not even one millionth of the boy he was meant to be!" Then she would reach into the draw and pull out the sock and a bar of soap. Unlike Mr. Stoppable, Mrs. Stoppable never left a bruise, just a little kid in pain wishing for this life to end._

_Mr. Stoppable was grabbing the bright orange extension cord and venting out all his frustrations on Ron. Every promotion denied, every last minute overtime session, every jerk that Mr. Stoppable encountered on the way home earn the young child another strip on his back._

_Mr. Possible threats of sending Ron to the nearest black hole was nothing. Ron remembered the circumcision. He was almost four. He remembered the screaming and the pain. He remembered the threat. Mr. Stoppable told Ron that if Ron embarrassed him in any why, that next time the cut was going to be a lot higher._

Ron remembered every blow, every laceration, every time he supposedly _fell down the stairs_. He remembered having to cry in the closet so that Mr. Stoppable won't whip him for being a _cry-baby_ or _sissy-boy_. He remembered the threats that Mr. Stoppable made if Ron ever told a soul about the hours long discipline sessions.

Ron could not tell.

He never told.

Shame ensured that the secrets would be kept. Kim would never understand how the two people he hated most in the world broke him.

Ron Stoppable did not deserve to have capital letters in his name or even to capitalize the I the pronoun that referred to one's self. He did not even deserve having the honor of a name or even the honor of breathing oxygen.

How could he, someone that faced down super-villains be unable to stand up to the Stoppables, for so long he wanted to defy them, to pay them back for all the pain and anger they carved into the hidden recesses of his soul?

Ronspent hours replaying the planned confrontation in his head. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Violence, blood, and the public display of internal organs were going to be the order of the day.

However, on his eighteenth birthday, Ron merely slipped away, withdrewsome of the naco royalty money and bought a small condo near the university. He never went back. He never confronted that two who broke his spirit.

Many night he would look back. He lost track of how many times he contemplated suicide. It was all too easy ... a parachute that would not open, a _mistimed_ leap into one of Shego's plasma bursts or Duff's exploding golf balls. However, he could not summon sufficient spirit to end his misery.

_You aren't a man. You are nothing but a parasite leeching off of those around you. Instead of dying as a man, you lived as a worm eating the slops that other left behind._

Kim was ... Kim Possible. She was his chance. She was his chance to be something more than a whipping boy. She was his chance to be somebody.

Kim was right.

Ron Stoppable was nothing but a monster.

Although not physically deformed, Ron met all the other criteria. Something evil inside Ron's headenjoyed inflicting death. He enjoyed the God like power. God Almighty might have been the Alpha, but Ron was the Omega. He was the end of the line for dozens of living breathing human beings.

Hell was cunningly designed.

The Stoppable taught Ron how to handle physical pain, how to ignore it. He learnedhow to not acknowledge the hurt. He learned how to act like he was not hurt. He accepted his lot.

However, this version of hell attached his sanity at its weakest point. Ron memories were eating away at the last of his mental reserves. He was going to crack. He was going to beg for more pain, anything so that he would not have to live with the memories of his inadequacies.

Suddenly, Ron felt like his insides were cut out and that he was choking.

Major Alice Myers, US Army Nursing Corps looked up from her charts towards the monitors.

The patient in Room 3432 was undergoing some violent reaction.

His heart-rate was well up over two hundred fifty. The rhythm was becoming erratic.

Myers yelled for one of the doc to follow her as she raced for the crash cart. She swiftly made for the room.

The patient was not on the bed.

Looking around, Myers spotted the patient twitching uncontrollably on the floor. With practiced ease, Myers drew five cc's of sedative.

"Doc, inject him?"

The young doctor nodded and Myers injected the patient with the sedative. Five minutes later, the patient stopped his violent twitching.

Now the alarm buzzed.

_Christ, he's flat lining._

"He needs Narcan, two milligrams. Now!"

The doctor okayed Myers demand.

Myers quickly grabbed an ampoule of the drug and injected the contents into the patient's heart.

_Fight, God damnit. You're a fucking jarhead. You are supposed to be some kind of hero. Fight._

However the nurse did not know that the patient was not fighting for his life, but to end it.

Looking down, Myers noted the blood.

"We got a crack skull. Get him to the OR stat."

However, it looked like the patient would not make it to the operating room.

She looked at the young doctor.

The doctor looked at the monitor and then down at the patient wristband.

"Note – Boiarskii, Private Vasilii is declared at 1803 local. Causes – Complications from wounds received in battle."

The doctor then stood up, made the notation on the chart as the nursing staff started removing the body from the machine that keep it alive.

Major Myers looked down on the body of Vasilii Boiarskii. He was no longer one of her patients, but a thing to be stuffed in body bag and chilled until the embalmers got to him.

One Hour Later

Kim could not believe the doctors.

They declared Ron dead once before and he came back from the grave. Now they were telling her that he was dead again.

She died inside at that moment. She would not slit her wrists. Ron's child needed a parent. However, Kim Possible life would consist of going through the motions.

_Why God? Hate me. Hate me. Don't hate Ron or my child. Damn you to hell. You spend all your damn fucking time listening to the angels sing that you don't even have the time to fix this fucking world._

_You left it us to us. And then you have to kill us? Ron did not go to kill, but to preserve peace. And you made sure that you placed him in a situation where he could not walk away. I hate you. I hate you and denounce you as a fraud. You are supposed to save the good and punish the bad. Fuck you._

Her salvation was gone. Her future was gone. Everything she had ever done now meant nothing. She saved so many and yet she could not save the one person that she had to save. Now she could not save herself.

Pastor Schlosser and his wife supported the distraught mother to be. Kim was in no condition to return home – Her pregnancy was too far along and too many complications have already occurred to risk another flight. Even if she could travel, all airline flights out of Western and Central Europe were cancelled due to the unstable situation in France.

Kim Possible's spirit was broken. The only thing keeping her alive was the child. Should anything happen, the couple knew that they would have to keep Kim on a suicide watch.

Pathology Department

Aloysius Schumacher was one of the hundred of locals hired by the United States Defense Department to provide services to keep Landstuhl Regional Medical Center running. As the morgue clerk, he was tasked with recording the moments of the bodies in and out of the unit.

It was generally not a disgusting job. Generally most of the bodies were already in bags and the others were covered up. Only the pathologists and their assistants see what is underneath the blankets. Aloysius task was to ensure that everyone scanned in and scanned out the tags so that no bodies were lost. He had enough seniority to not be assigned to maintain the inventory of body parts. He still had nightmares from two months on that job and that was a dozen years ago.

Aloysius was working the evening seven to three thirty shift as the unit manager was on vacation. At nine it was time to do the inventory.

Aloysius knew the status of everything that occurred in the morgue. He was punching in when the orderlies brought in a new _guest_. The body was filed away in the appropriate drawer to await the pathologists tomorrow morning. However all military had a thing call SOP or standard operating procedure and SOP had to be followed unless someone in charge ordered otherwise.

It was SOP for the clerk to conduct a patient check at 2200.

The guests can not walk away. They were already dead. However SOP was law, even in the morgue. A patient was a patient until the pathologist butchered the corpse and signed off on the certificate. The military never made much sense to Aloysius, even after a two-year mandatory tour with the _Bundeswehr_ after secondary school.

Aloysius removed the clipboard off the hook, grabbed the US DOD issued flashlight, and his two way cellular phone.

Tonight went just about as well as any other night. Open the door, shine the light, place the tick mark in the appropriate column, close the door, and move on to the next drawer. At least it was routine until Aloysius rounded the corner.

One of the doors was broken out, hanging on only one hinge.

There was a naked man huddled, shaking in the corner, babbling to himself.

Aloysius did not know what to do. There were contingencies for everything, everything but this... He tried to get the man's attention.

"Hello, may I help you?"

However, the man just sat there oblivious to the fact that he was naked in a morgue. The man was just hugging himself, rocking himself as he hummed an unmelodic tone.

Aloysius did the only thing that he could do. He called hospital security.

Two military policemen or MPs arrived within the minute. One of them approached the naked man and tried to speak to him, but the man was someplace else.

"Sarge, this guy need some serious help. Any blankets."

Aloysius ran to a supply closet and handed the MP a set of scrubs.

"Sorry Sergeant. We don't carry blankets. However this will do."

It took the MPs fifteen minutes to get the man dressed. The man did not resist, nor did he help. The military policemen had to lead the man like one would lead a very young child. Tonight would be a very long night for everyone involved.


	34. Falling Apart

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Falling Apart**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

All he saw was a grey blur. 

Everything he heard sounded like a horde of gigantic metallic bees buzzing about his ears.

All he felt was pain. Like someone cut him open and scoured his insides with stainless steel wool pads.

To top it all off he woke up in a metal box.

He remembered the moment he _died_. He remembered shaking uncontrollably choking on the tube. He remembered the doctor's voice pronouncing him dead at 1803.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to tell the world that he was still there, but his body would not obey his commands. Instinctively he withdrew into himself to protect what was left of his identity. The last thing he heard was an alarm.

He could not be alive. Hell always had a way of breaking one's spirits. The old tactic almost got him.

This new tactic was working all too well. He had believed that he was actually still alive for the moment. He heard the orderly lock him in the freezer.

He had to get out. Anyone who watched CSI or one of its many clones knew the autopsy was coming. He did not want to feel the saw cutting into what was left of him. Once he saw a video of a brain being cut open. The brains and blood was not scary. What gave him nightmare was seeing an ordinarily gentle doctor use a circular saw on the patient's skull. The sound, the whirl of the blade haunted his nightmares for years to come.

Now the devils were going to cut into his skull and feast on his brains.

As soon as he could, he fought his way out of the box. He was still alive. At least alive enough to feel pain. He hurt himself, but he got out of the box.

He wanted to run, but his body would not let him. He was so exhausted and weak that he just sat there awaiting for the next torture to take place. He finally broke. He could not imagine how hell could get any worse.

Fire and brimstone had nothing compare to what was happening in his_ mind_.

Someone, something led him to a small room and left him there.

He waited for the next act in this place of damnation.

* * *

Even after fifteen years of practicing medicine, Dr. Samuel Goldstein knew that he did not know all the answers. 

In front of him was proof that all the established rules were meant to be broken.

The doctors in the ICU pronounced him dead. According to the telemetry, the young man was dead. His heart stopped for over five minutes before the test leads were removed. He was dead.

However, sitting in the room was the man very much alive.

The other docs cut him up, patched up his body. Now it was time for Dr. Goldstein to fix the young guy's mind.

The young man was broken. He just sat there sobbing, ignoring the outside world. The IV feeding kept him from dying of starvation, but he had lost significant weight and was down sixty pounds from his post-boot camp body weight.

He looked more like a little boy than the hero responsible for saving so many lives.

The MRI told Dr. Goldstein that the brain was physically okay. There were no dead spots and in fact the brain was hyperactive even when the young man was sedated. This was not anything near a textbook case. Dr. Goldstein knew that he would have to rely on his experience and figure out how to return this young man back to some semblance of normality.

The young man was babbling in some foreign language that confused the staff. It sounded like German, but it was some obscure dialect and even the parts that Goldstein could understand did not make any sense.

_Anastasia, Doll House, orange pain, black pain, Kim, sorry, soap, sock, mommy, please don't go, I tried, I tried, let me go with you._

It was the request to go somewhere that struck Dr. Goldstein the most.

It could mean many things.

The mind was anything but a logical structure. Words had the dictionary meaning and connotations associated with them from a lifetime's worth of experiences. Two plus two never equal four. The mind was a thing more twisted than Lewis Carol of _Alice in Wonderland_ fame could ever describe.

One hundred fifty years of modern psychology, and not even its best practionersdid not even have the concept of how warpped a normal human mind could be, let alone one driven to madness.

However to explore, Dr. Goldstein had to figure out how to communicate with the distrait young marine.

It was time to visit the young man and try to break through.


	35. Reflection

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Reflection**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Shego hated herself for what she became.

The former teen heroine looked down at her expanding belly. Now two lives depended on Shego's ability to maintain her grip on a plan that had long since slipped out of her control.

Twice more Shego had to turn one of her co-conspirators into an object lesson. If she did not, she and her unborn child would be dead. The cabal would not hesitate to kill her, child or no child. Unlike the villains she encountered in her career, these villains only code was the law of the jungle.

Dr. Drakken, Shego's former employer, was of no help. All he did was complain about being cut out from the glory of conquering a nation and about not having some kind of death ray to pay with.

The plan was working. Events were playing out as Shego predicted. However, there was one snafu.

Someone tipped Global Justice off to her role in the destabilization of France. Now Shego went from an irritation to being number one on Global Justice's Most Wanted List. Twice agents or bounty hunters tried to collect on the dead or alive fifty million dollar bounty on her head. _Time Magazine_ already named Shego as person of the year, noting that she was the most dangerous person to be honored so since Adolf Hitler in 1939.

According to the latest Gallop Poll only Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin topped Shego in evilness. Her ranking crushed Pol Pot and Mao to a dismal yawn on the scale of evilness. Now even Hench Co started refusing to do business with her because of the _heat_. The other villains started to distance themselves from her.

The idiots in the media credit her with inventing _jamming_, or paralyzing the opposition by turning their own folks against them. Anarchists and nihilists hailed Shego as the most influential anarchist philosophers since Martin Heidegger and Friedrich Nietzsche. The Roman Catholic Church, having found out that Shego was a Catholic excommunicated her. Fundamentalist Christian preachers hailed her as the Antichrist from the pulpits. The media were hounding her brothers to tell them what she was like as a child. Shego shuddered to think what other crap the public would associate with her name and image.

The techniques she used to manipulate and coordinate a fickle mob were not her brain child, but rather an adaptation on other's ideas. _Culture jamming_ was big when she was a lonely teenage covering her greenish skin with white stage make up and black eye liner before sneaking out of the Go Compound to participate in illegal underground _cultural events_.

It was there that Shego under her alter ego _Madame Juliette de Sade_, songwriter/bass guitarist for the _Sade_, Go City's shadowy underground industrial band. It was her former boyfriend, Ned Star, who taught her how to use _flash mobs_ and other jamming techniques to pack warehouses in Go City's industrial parks at three in the morning to witness the Sade's legendary musical/pyrotechnic performances.

Shego missed those days. She missed having real friends and not being treated as a freak. She missed having some part of her life that she could be lose herself. She missed having something that made the pain and loneliness fade away.

However, once she left Go City, the band split up and the others joined the nine to five rat race. Ned Star _Blackhart_ ended up managing a Bueno Nacho in Middleton. Matthew Simeon _Simeon Sayz Die!_ ended up a music teacher at Go City High. Tom Wayne _Duke the Tom Cat_ was a real estate broker in Los Angeles. Tracy Yukio _Tank Girl_ was a photo-journalist for the _Rolling Stones_ covering the underground industrial music scene turning their once private world into a commercialized venue and a weekly show on MTV.

_Maybe if things go wrong, I would give Tracy an exclusive interview._

That was two lifetimes ago, but Shego used the techniques that she mastered as a fourteen year old musician to topple a nation. Looking out on the burning city, it was obvious that the mob had its own concept of pyrotechnics. All that she need was the soundtrack.

A voice awoke Shego out of her self loathing.

"Shego, where is my Coco-Moo?"

It was Drakken.

"Doctor, for the hundredth time, there is no Coco-Moo in France."

Normally she would punctuate her irritation with a plasma blast. However, Drew Lipsky was the only person that did not want her dead. Flawed he was, but he was the only person that she now felt safe around.

"But..."

Swallowing her normal sarcastic tone, she motioned her former boss closer.

"Okay, you win. I had one of the guys buy up the last two pallets from that Costco in Liverpool we stopped by before coming here."

The look on Drakken's face told Shego that he could not appreciate her more. It was disconcerting to see the puppy-like loyalty. Just a few good words and a little Coco-Moo and he would do anything for her.

_Too bad that when things fall apart that you will have to be next to me when they have us pose for rifle fire._

Shego wanted to run away and disappear, but she had no place that she could go. She could not go to the father of her child. He was an honest man and she was...she was the most wanted person on the planet. He would probably turn her in to the authorities. She would die before she would let anyone take her child away from her.

Besides, Drakken needed someone to watch out for him.

Her only course was to ride the train until it crashed or derailed.

Shego looked up to see Drakken do his victory dance. He had his Coco-Moo and all was right with his world. Too bad that she could no longer enjoy such simple pleasures.


	36. Reconnecting I

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Reconnecting, 1**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Major Park, US Army Medical Corps looked upon the young marine assigned to his care. It was now his mission to return this young man to some semblance of normalcy.

_Jesus Christ, how the fuck am I going to tell him that everything is going to be hunky dory. Nothing is ever hunky dory after you have seen the elephant._

Landsthul Regional Medical Center had its share of head doctors, but there were not that many head doctors in military service that saw his share of combat or lost his leg and an arm to a Soviet era landmine. Thus the staff assigned him to every amputee case.

_It's kind of hard to bitch to a shrink that he does not understand that missing a leg is a major bitch when the shrink is missing one too._

With the situation in France, the wounded in the Middle East and Africa were now being ship via Morocco now. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center ceased being a transshipment point for the wounded coming out of the middle east. The patients here were stuck with whatever treatment could be rendered by the staff. There was no place else they could go.

Major Park examined all the charts, but there was no information that he could use to connect to the distraught young man. All he heard were rumors that Boiarskii's wife was in town trying to see him. However, no one seems to be able to contact her.

Park rubbed the stubble on his head with his remaining hand in frustration.

It was time.

Park rolled his wheelchair into the room.

The young man _looked_ up at Park and just stared past him through the bandages covering his eyes. The notation on the chart stated that Boiarskii was very sensitive to light.

"Private, I'm Major Park."

However the words did not connect with the young man.

Major Park rolled forward until he could touch the young man's hands. The moment they made contact, it was as if the young man was shocked. The young man grabbed the major in a bear hug and started crying.

Major Park tried talking to the young man, but the young man did not acknowledge his words. Sliding out the beg hold, but careful to maintain physical contact via the hand, Major Park closely examined the young man.

_Christ, no wonder why he did not respond. His eardrums were detached._

Being in darkness and no sound would break any man. Sensory deprivation was a very effective torture. Slowly the young man relaxed enough to let exhaustion overtake him.

Major Park made a phone call. He had to wait for the ear doctors to do their thing.

* * *

Ron Stoppable woke up to the sound of a chirp and a page for Dr. Goldstein to call extension 06-4523.

He was not sure if this was another act in his version of hell or if he was still alive. However, he had to act if he was still alive. If it was hell, nothing he would do could lessen the pain. If he was alive...

_You don't deserve life you son of a bitch!_

The negative voices in his mind were all too right. His mother and sister did not hurt anyone, yet they were killed. Kim trusted him and he let her down. His squad mates had families that they loved and that loved them and they were killed.

All Ron had was a skill of converting life into death and the demons of guilt and duty clawing into his soul.

God had forsaken him a long time ago. He was far too effective in punishing himself for hell to ever claim him. There was nothing else to do until the doctors let him out. As long as mankind had wars, there will always be another chance for Ron Stoppable to seek his salvation in the purity of purpose of sending a 175-grain match grade round into the cranial cavity of whoever pissed on the rights of the innocent.

Killing was his purpose in life. Killing would be his penance. Killing would be his way of cutting out an infection that would otherwise kill the pure among the sinners. Killing was the only way for this sinner to atone for his inadequacies.

Heaven had no place for him. His brush with death showed him a taste of hell. There were no bright lights and sunny fields, no relatives to welcome him to the afterlife.

No, he fell too far to ever be worthy of salvation. His salvation lied in the way of the gun. The way of the gun demanded that he heal up and prepare himself for the next act in the twisted play called life.

A creek told him that someone was entering the room.

Ron looked up at an Asian man in a motorized wheelchair enter the room.

"Private, I am Major Tom Park, US Army Medical Corps. You are in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany undergoing treatment for gunshot wounds and malnutrition. The other docs have cut you up and now you frankly look like something from Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Physically you should recover pretty fast considering that you have successfully fooled the navy into sending multiple reports of your demise to your next of kin."

Ron knew that his jaw must have dropped.

"Don't worry. You wife is okay and the baby is okay too."

_Wife, baby? What the ..._

"However before she can see you, I have to evaluate the grey stuff that floats inside your skill. Make sure your synapses are firing properly and that you don't bark at the moon. Unlike the other butchers that specialize in cutting and sewing, I specialize in knocking some sense into that thick skull of yours. Question one is how that fuck could you be so dumb as to take on couple hundred SIMS by yourself? Gunning for the medal."

"SIMS, sir?"

"Sudanese Islamic Militia. The guys that nearly kill you."

"The Shits," Ron was mortified that he used his politically incorrect name for the opposition in front of an officer. "Sorry, sir. The SIMS ambushed my squad. I saw them dance in joy after killing them. They killed their own women and children. The killed others because they did not pray the same way they do. They were going to kill other marines. I will be a monkey's uncle if I did not stop them."

"By stopping them, I assume that you meant killing them?"

"Sir, I am a marine. The battalion motto was, 'Make Peace, or Die!' They did not make peace..."

"Son, don't worry about being politically correct in front of me. I did not bite into the love your enemy routine also. Sometimes it felt good to pull that trigger and sent all that hated back to them."

Ron could not believe what the doctor was saying. _Hate was good?_

"I would not indulge in it or shoot little kids for kick, but sometimes when you are going up against that bad guy. You know that this _shit head_ is not Mother Theresa or the pope. This guy killed your buddies, you know, you have no doubts about his guilt. You can either retreat or you can become God's avenging angel of wrath. You decide to smite the foe. You decide to become the avatar of justice.

"You are afraid, yet you feel alive in a way that you will be never able to share with someone who has not been there. The world goes silent before you strike and afterward you feel that moment of glory, before that part of your mind screams at you _Thou shalt not kill_. Then you start feeling bad about feeling good about doing something that is both good and yet bad. It's a vicious cycle, but I am here to tell you that its okay to feel these things.

"I have been there and broken down like a baby at times. Even today, I still mourn the loss of my friends that that was five years ago. I probably will still mourn them when I'm eighty. It is when you stop feeling or deny them that I worry."

"Sir,..."

"Private, don't sir me. Before they slapped a butter bar on my collar, I wore three strips on my sleeves. I worked for a living. Call me Tom. Do you have any nicknames?"

"Fresh Meat, Dumbo, or maggot?"

The old Ron shine came back just at the worst possible time.

"God damn Corps. Okay, do you mind if I call you Vee?"

Ron smiled for the first time since his descent into the darkness.

"Si ... I mean Tom. What is gonna happen?"

"Simple, you are mine for the next three weeks while I go through the motions. Because of the problems with France, you will be stuck here for a while. Normally you would go on a flight back to the states, but we are going to bring in some local help for the physical therapy. In addition, we are going to put some meat back on your bones, Vee. Do you have anyone you want to call or email and let them know that you are alright?"

Ron considered calling the Possibles, but he did not want to confront Kim. However, he could not remember Mrs. Dr. P's personal email. The only email account that he remembered was Wade's.

Ron now had only one problem, what was he going to say.

* * *

Wade Lode hated his life now.

With the breakup of Team Possible and Kim out on _maternity leave_ there was nothing to do. Sure he made a bunch of cash pounding out video-games, but making video games, even the cool ones that would earn the adults only rating, was not the same as hacking into some villain's networks and having to do so under tight time constrants.

Wade hated Ron for knocking up Kim and then going off to his death. He wanted to go and kick the shit out of blond boy for messing up Wade's life. However, the fact that Ron was dead and the fact that Wade has a crippling case of agoraphobia ensured that Wade could do nothing else but mutter obscenities at fate.

Tracing Ron's accounts yielded nothing. The only activities were the incoming naco royalty checks and funds being released into the charitable trust funds that Ron set up. Most of the money was just literally making interest on interest.

Wade knew that stealing the funds would be too easy, but stealing was not Wade's style. Also, the trust fund was paying for medical research. Stealing Ron's money out of spite would only harm the researchers tying to do good things.

Hacking was off limits. The FBI and Secret Service told his that if he hacked into their secure data bases one more time that they would haul him away to a island and leave him under all that open sky, unless he hacked for them.

He did a few favors for the lot, but they were not as time-critical as the work he did for Team Possible. Swiss, Russian, and Caribbean banks were old hat for Wade Load. The problem was there was so much data that it took forever to find the golden nugget.

_Damn you Ron!_

Wade was now thirteen, just old enough to start appreciating the differences between boys and girls. He was now appreciative enough to hack every adult website. Some of the things he saw, he rather that he did not, but never the less he enjoyed a lot of things. Too bad that he could not figure out how to materials some of the actresses off the screen into his bedroom. He calculated the odds of losing his virginity and the odds did not look good. His only hope was to locate a call girl ring, but with mom in the house and her habit of checking the credit card statements...

Wade hated being agoraphobic. He tried the therapy, but it did not work. That was the problem. Most therapy did not work when the patient knew exactly what the doctor was going to do. It looked like Wade's dating options were limited to Mistress Palm and her five sisters.

Wade having just experience the joys of self-gratification returned from taking a brief shower when to check his email. After deleting all the ads for penis enlargements, weight lost, and Viagra, Wade checked his personal email account.

There was a new email address – It had to be a joke, but the description matched Ron. Wade was tempted to delete it, but curiosity kicked in and Wade opened it, after scanning it for viruses.

_From: "Wade Lode" I lost my pants, again!_

_Wade, it's me. I am in a military hospital in Germany. I walked into a fan blade and then stepped into a steaming mountain of shit, but the docs say I am going to live. I know that you will try to hack into the chart and order me a diet of lima beans for this, but I need to send a message to Mrs. Dr. Possible private email account and let her know that I am alive._

_Please email me her email address._

_If you do, I will owe you a big one, I can never repay._

_If you don't, I will understand why. I am sorry that I let you down. I always let everyone down, guess that my calling card in life._

_Don't tell Kim. It's better that she does not know. The breakup of the team was my fault. It's better that she move on without me. She was the one that always saved the world. All I ever did was slow her down. When she needed me the most, I messed everything up. I don't expect your forgiveness._

_The Ron Stoppable you know is better off dead. When I heal up, I will be in a Marine Corps billet somewhere playing with other people's explosives. Maybe they will get lucky next time?_

_Thanks for getting me all those video games for the holidays and my birthdays. Even though you signed Kim's name on the card, I knew that it was you. You always rock hard corps style, Wade. You earned a big oorah from this marine._

_Should you need anything, please let me know and I will move heaven and earth for you._

_Private Vasilii Boiarskii, USMC formerly Ron Stoppable_

"Damn you," Wade muttered as he wiped away a tear.

Ron Stoppable was hurting big time.

Wade took a deep breath as he hacked into a variety of data bases looking for more information on Ron's condition.


	37. Alone

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Alone**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Global Justice Liaison Agent Jan-Erik Hjalmar, formerly _Sergent_-_chef_ of the _2e Régiment Étranger de Parachutistes_, carefully build his sniper's hide over the past three weeks. Despite being born in Vantaa, Finland and having a Finnish name, Hjalmar considered himself French. France is all he knew since his father, Erik Hjalmar, became a professor of civil engineering at a small university outside Marseilles, when Jan-Erik was four years old.

Ten years of service in the legion before being seconded to the _Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure_, or _DGSE_, taught him all the skills that he would use tonight. Seven years working in the _La Piscine _the swimming pool or more correctly DGSE Headquarters at 141 Boulevard Mortier in Paris did not slow Hjalmar at the very least.

Jan-Erik Hjalmar did not plan on surviving the shot. He had nothing left to live for. Marie, his wife of seventeen years, was killed in one of the first food riots. Henri, his six year-old son, died from being trampled by the crowd during the ensuing panic. Jan-Erik lost his family because some scheming American whore named Shego decide to dabble in international politics turning the once proud nation of France into a cesspool of anarchy and disorder. Americans were worst than _les goddamns_ the English and the Fritz's combined.

Jan-Erik Hjalmar was more of a Francophile than Charles de Gaulle. He was spiritual descendant of Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte. He would with a single act of defiance end the oppression of _le grand dame France_.

All the windows facing the target were carefully lined with reflective foil and heavy, mover's blanket to defeat any chance that the opposition could spot the glint of a rifle scope. The rooms facing the target were heated by a heat lamp to body temperature so that thermal imagining was useless. Using plywood, cinder block, and sand bags, Jan-Erik build a shooting platform high enough to allow him to shoot from a steady prone position down unto his target. He carefully prepare his sand bag shooting rest, for only idiots trusted such a critical shot to a flimsy bipod.

For his tool, Jan-Erik turned to the land of his birth. Sako was one of the premier rifle makers in the world and the TRG-42 .338 8.6x70mm Lapua Magnum was one of the world's best 1,000 – 1,500 meter sniping rifles. The round filled the ballistic vacuum between a 7.62x51mm NATO round used for sniping and the classical 12.7x99mm Browning round used by the M2HB .50-cal machine gun. This particular rifle was worked over by one of the best gunsmiths in Europe.

A German unfortunately, but went it came to precision rifles, the best custom gunsmiths were found in either Germany or the United States. The rifle was rebuilt into a 1/4 minute of angle accurate nail driver. It was so accurate the Jan-Erik once place five shoots into a one and a half centimeter circle at nine hundred meters. Jan-Erik used it twice to send a 250-grain message of doom to the enemies of France in the former French colony of Algiers. Tonight, it would remove the most terrible of enemies to ever set foot on the sacred soil of France since Adolf Hitler enjoyed his one day tour of Paris.

Tonight, _la chienne_ the bitch and _le tas de loups_ her pack of wolves would meet in the conference room. For a moment, Jan-Erik would have a clear line of sight as they entered the building. He would have the chance to pay Shego back for the death of his family and his nation. He would place a 250-grain match grade bullet into her skull and more into any other skulls he could. He would not be able to get them all. No one could. He would not survive this night. However, with _la chienne_ dead, France will have a chance to throw off the yolk of her bondage and he would be able to see his wife and son again.

Everything was calculated. It was exactly one hundred sixteen meters from his muzzle to the main entry way of the building – well within range for making the head shot. He would fire two rounds in quick secession. Both would be placed in her brain stem. Only in Hollywood does on aim at the upper skull. Professionals place their shots just below the nose in a frontal shot or in the ear lobe on a side shot. The first round might or might not be placed in her brain stem depending if the windows of her vehicle were bullet resistant. The second would ensure that Shego would be sent on an express train to hell.

Jan-Erik loaded five 250-grain match-grade .338 Lapua Magnum rounds that he carefully hand-loaded himself into each one of the four box magazines. Then he loaded his rifle, chambered a round, removed the magazine and topped it off before reloading it back into the rifle. Now he had five in the magazine and one in the chamber – Six shoots, four more then he expected to need.

Jan-Erik set everything up, before taking his final piss. He had been around the block to know that one always felt the need to wet one's pants in the moment of truth. However, he would head off _la chienne Fortune_, the bitch lady luck, by taking the appropriate preventative measures. He ate the last of the canned luncheon meat with the remnants of a potato he dig up out of someone's backyard.

Tonight _la chienne_ will have an 8.6 millimeter entry hole in her skull. Tonight he will save the only thing he had left in this life – France.

Five hours passed as darkness descended unto the city of light. Lights appeared in the conference room. Although Paris was almost empty as the masses fleed the city looking for food, there were enough refuges to ensure the continuation of the riots. Jan-Erik wanted to shoot them for making Shego's plans possible, however to do so would ensure that Shego would be alive when the sun rose tomorrow mornings. He waited as he inhaled the smokeless cigarettes. He hated the damned things, missing his favorite Turkish non-filtered cigarettes. He remembered his wife and the doctor chiding him about the hazards of smoking. However, now he need not worry about emphysema or lung cancer.

After the shoot, he would light up and celebrate with the big fat cigar he saved from the contradictory box that was given to him on the birth of his son. It would have been given to Henri when he graduated.

Jan-Erik shook away the memories. Later he could lose himself.

The headlights of the approaching convoy told the ex-legionnaire that his target was in the vicinity. Jan-Erik shouldered his rifle and prepared to take the shoot. Everything was in place. He controlled his breathing and his heart so that an errent beat would not throw off his shot. He lined up the cross-hairs with her earlobe. He squeezed the trigger and it broke exactly at one kilogram of pressure.

* * *

Shego got out of the passenger seat of the Mercedes SUV. She never feel so big and awkward in her life. The former gymnast slash superhero was waddling forward when she tripped over her own two feet. One of the henchmen grabbed her and started dragging her. Half a second later, she heard the muzzle blast. Looking back as she was dragged into the relative safety of the building, she saw Drew Lipsky's body bleeding on the sidewalk.

Drew was her only friend.

Drew was the only one who stuck by her when she needed a home.

Drew was the only one who did not treat her as a freak, but accepted her unconditionally.

Drew loved her in his immature way.

She loved him as an older sister would love a geeky, younger brother.

Now, there was nothing to hold her to the plan. Nothing save the small matter of having a homicidal sniper gunning for her, the small matter of being the most wanted criminal on the planet, and the small matter of being seven months pregnant with nowhere left to go.

Shego was as lonely as the moment the comet killed her parents and grandmother. She was a freak, saved and totured by a freak's luck.

Twice more shots rang out.

Now there was gunplay between the sniper, the individual coconspirators, and assorted thugs. One of the henchmen Shego recalled to deal with Drakken, Max Standard, an Australian rogue, quickly lead her to the sub-basement. He sat her down on a stool, handed her his Heckler and Koch HK-53 assault rifle and three spare magazines.

"It's loaded, safety off, three round burst. Just point and click. Release the trigger and then click again. Shoot at anything that comes in the door. I will knock first. Three, pause, two. Remember if you hear three knocks, a pause, then two more, it's me. If you don't, light them up. The rest of the blokes decided to quit."

Shego needed someone right now.

"Boss, we got a bloody maniac playing sniper. If I don't take him out, he will take us out. He's gunning for you and if we don't..."

Shego wanted to go with Max. However, Max was right. Yet Shego was loath to let him go.

"Come back, I will ..."

"Don't even offer me a bonus, boss. If I ditch you, where can I go? I am too short to work in Shorty's, I mean Professor De Menz's crew. The Seniors are cheapskates when it comes to hiring help. And Hench Co has lousy medical benefits. I have been with you and Dr. D for the past two years. You're not just another birdie giving me a paycheck, but family."

Shego could not control her weeping. She was not alone; she still had a pal.

"I'm coming back. If you don't see me in two hours, there is a sewer access in the bottom sub-basement. The whole damn city has an extensive network of sewers big even to hide an entire army. Just make your way south until you can go south underground no more. Hide among the refuges and make your way south to Marseilles. Hire a boat and go to Greece. From Greece, you can disappear anywhere."

Max left Shego in the darkness.

* * *

Jan-Erik was excited. He got her. Even though he did not see the bullet strike because of the recoil, there was enough brain and skull fragments on the SUV to be sure that he took _le chienne_ out.

He started gunning for the others. Twice he changed magazines. He fired making each and every round a kill.

"I am the avenging angel that will remove you stinking Americans from my country. I spit at your power. I will piss on your graves. I will ..."

Jan-Erik did not finish the taunt. A cold muzzle was pressed against his temple.

"I am a Monty Python fan and you do a lousy French taunter. Let us start with the line, 'You don't frighten us you English pig dogs!'"

"Kill me you filthy American. You might kill me, but one day, one of us will kill you and yours."

"One, I'm an Aussie, not a soding yank. Two, I take a shower every day, unlike you stinking Europeans. Three, you just killed someone I considered family. Four, you sunk to an all time low when tried to whack a pregnant women. And last, I am going to sort your sorry, sod-ded ass all the way to hell"

"Fuck you!"

"No, your next line was suppose to be, 'Go and boil your bottoms, you son of a silly person. I'll blow my nose at you, so called Arthur king! You and all your silly English cunnnnnnnnnigits!'"

Max then did something that was outside all the established rules of super villainy. He used a firearm to actually kill a person.

"I don't want to talk to you no more you empty headed animal foot trough water! I'll fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and you father smelt of eldiberry! Now go away or I will taunt you a second time."

Max then kicked the weakened body of the former legionnaire off the shooting platform and collected the rifle and all the gear including Jan-Erik's medical supplies. Max went through the pockets of the shooter's gear and retrieved Jan-Erik's Global Justice credentials and identification documents.

Jan-Erik Hjalmar failed. He failed to save his family. He failed to stop the destruction of his homeland. He failed to make a simple shot. He failed to die cleanly from the gunshot wound to his head. Until he lost consciousness an eternity later, all he had was his inadequacies for company.

The rats soon had another corpse on which to feast.


	38. Prelude to a Dinner Date

**Ron's Worse Nightmares**

**Prelude to a Dinner Date**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who submitted a review. I have been very busy and unable to make time to reply. I vow to be more diligent about it in the future. However, any excuse I would attempt to use in order to justify my lack of response would sound pretty lame. Even if true, excuses were always lame, so I won't bore you with them.

* * *

"You are almost there ... almost there, nineteen laps, one more to go." 

Ron stifled another groan as he kicked off the pool wall to complete the final lap. Groaning only earned him another lung-full of chlorinated water.

It was amazing what a couple months of neglect and stress could do to a human body. Ron dropped from his normal 170 pounds to a mere 105. His torso had more stitches than Dr. Frankenstein's monster. One of the other patients described the scars as _zippers and extra assholes_.

The only nice thing about his new set of scars was the fact that it hid the old scars left on his back by years of childhood abuse.

However, the physical scars were just an infinitesimally small fraction of the scars hidden in the dark recesses of his mind. The physical part was too easy. It was just physical pain and all he had to do was keep on pushing until his body broke down and would go on no more.

Dr. Park, however, was the experience that Ron wanted to avoid. Unlike the head docs that operated from a book, Dr. Park knew exactly when Ron was trying to hide something. Ron was not ready to share the horror that molded him into something so despicable with anyone, especially one he considered as a pal.

_There is only honesty between enemies, for lies are necessary between good friends._

However, Dr. Park called him out every time Ron attempted to bluff his way out.

Ron hated this. During Ron's freshman year of college, Ron used his baby face to make extra cash on the poker tables. He would just imagine one of his favorite songs and start bopping his head to the imaginary music streaming in his head. No one could get a read on him - The legendary goofy grin successfully hid a multitude of negative emotions since Ron was in Pre-K.

Now it was useless. It was like Kim's Puppy Dog Pout not spurring Ron to do some odious task for Kim.

Ron lost himself in the memories just in time to bump his head on the opposite wall of the Olympic sized swimming pool.

"Private, that's it for today. How many fingers am I holding up?"

The physical training was flashing the peace sign.

"Four."

The peace sign became the bird.

"I guess that I am number one after all."

The specialist reached down and with a single smooth motion yanked Ron out of the pool.

"Hurry up. You got a visitor tonight. Major Parks want you to shit, shower, shave, and remember your table manners."

Ron staggered into the locker room with the physical therapist following behind to ensure that the patient did not knock himself out on the wet tiles.

* * *

Kim snuck a peak at Ron's medical charts, courtesy of Wade Lode, but nothing could prepare her for the briefing giving to her by Doctor Parks. Ron was physically recovering from his near death ordeal. He was starting to put on weight and his body was mending with little sign of permanent damage considering how close he came to being cut up on the autopsy table. He was physically ready to be discharged and would be going to the outpatient clinic for the next month or so. 

However, Ron was not ready to come to grips with his psychological injuries. Ron was a good actor - Too good for Doctor Parks to sign off on Ron's mental status. It was always the quiet ones that snapped the most violently.

Dr. Parks told her about how he once tried to hide the pain and then about his suicide attempt. Suicide and spousal abuse rates spike among soldiers just after they return home, because they can not emotionally connect with the normal world they left behind. Ron fit the profile of a potential suicide.

Kim and Dr. Parks came up with a plan to save the young marine.

* * *

"For extraordinary heroism as a combat engineer assigned to 3rd Squad,Combat Engineer Platoon, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force in support of Operation VIGILENT WARDEN on 25 March 2008. While clearing the road between Malakal and Kodok for landmines and improvised explosives, then Private First Class Vasilii Boiarskii's motorized patrol moved into a coordinated ambush of rocket propelled grenades, and automatic weapons fire where all the other member of his patrol were killed by members of the Sudanese Islamic Militia when their HUMVEE was struck by rocket propelled grenades. 

"Without hesitation, then Private First Class Vasilii Boiarskii immediately engage the enemy squad with accurate fire from his M25 United States Marine Corps Designated Marksman Rifle. He then made his way cross-country engaging targets of opportunity while traveling towards Firebase Gunsite Three to deliver the news of the ambush and vital intelligence about Sudanese Islamic Militia activity in the province.

"Four kilometers from his objective, Private First Class Vasilii Boiarskii, spotted a battalion-sized concentration of Sudanese Islamic Militia preparing to attack Firebase Gunsite Three. Instead of hiding and letting the enemy comment an attack, he single handedly halted the attack by engaging the enemy commanders with accurate rifle fire as they were inspiring the militia to attack. When his position was being overrun, he chose to demolish the building rather than surrendering.

"His ammunition nearly depleted and being buried alive in rubble, Private first Class Vasilii Boiarskii, with complete disregard for his safety, continue to engage the enemy with accurate rifle fire and continued his ferocious attack until he passed out from blood loss, forcing the enemy to delay their attack. When his audacious attack ended, he had broken up an enemy attack long enough for reinforcements and ammunition to be delivered to the beleaguered firebase, killed more than 80 enemy soldiers, including many members of the enemy cadre and commanders, and wounding several others.

"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, Private First Class Vasilii Boiarskii, United States Marine Corps,reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

Ron knew that someone was going to put him in for a medal, but he was only expected the Purple Enemy Marksmanship Medal. He failed to spot the ambush. He failed to keep his squad mates alive. He failed and yet they called him a hero.

"Sir, it's all bullshit. My squad is dead because I messed up and did not spot the ambush in time."

"Private that is the last word I want to hear from your mouth until I am done. Understand?"

"Aye, aye, major."

"Aye, aye, sir! I am not some wet behind the ears refuge from ROTC.Didn't they teach you to say sir in the Corps?"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Okay. That is what some chair warmer with stars on his collar board is going to announce as some general pins the Navy Cross on you. Sorry to dash your hopes, but if you died like you were suppose to, the president would hand your next of kin the Medal of Honor in some photo op. However, since you live, you got the booby prize, Lieutenant."

"I'm a PFC!"

"Correction, you were a lance corporal as of April 15th. However, you will not be wearing that insignia."

Ron wondered what was going to happen.

"I called the Marine Detachment at the US Embassy in Berlin. They are sending down anlieutenant and a couple NCO'swith two sets of the appropiatedress uniforms with the appropiate insignia and the sword. I will have a local tailor alter it to fit you, but it will be a little loose. We are going to handle the paperwork this afternoon and get you sworn in.

"Afterward, I arranged for you to go on a brief shopping expedition for some suitable civilian clothing and then enjoy an intimate dinner with a young lady. As an officer and a gentleman, I expect you to act nobly. Should you decide to spread pollen, please do so in a dignified manner."

Ron smiled at the joke, "Don't worry, I will tell the _Frauleins_ that Marine officers do not accept monetary gratuities for rendering a public service."

Major Parks laughed like a maniac.

"You are the first bright, young Marine I came across. Because of your medications, I will insist that you don't drink alcohol or if you do, that you limit yourself to one small drink. As of 0001 tomorrow, you will officially be on out patient status. At 0945 the day after tomorrow, you will report in civilian clothing to Captain Emanuel Lopez at the Outpatient. He will orientate you to officer life and prep you for the award ceremony tentatively scheduled for this Friday at 1000.

"I don't want to see your ugly face except for our three times a week head shrinking sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 1500. You will report to the outpatient clinic for physical therapy at 1330 the same days. Bring a sweat suit, because they will probably send to one of the German physical therapists. They believe that the best healer is sweat and pain."

"But..."

Major Parks shook his head, "Boiarskii, you are an interesting character, but you can't lie worth a damn to me, so don't even try to thank me. I don't want to see your scrawny ass no earlier than 1600 the day after tomorrow. Because of the situation, I arranged for you to bunk with Wolfgang and Anna Schlosser. They are Germans, god-fearing, church-going types, but they have agreed to extend their hospitality to a pagan such as yourself until we can take care of your quarters. Now sit down and start signing."

One hour later, Ron felt like he just signed off on a mortgage. He must have signed a dozen copies of a dozen different documents all of which had to be notarized. The paperwork made taking the oath seems easy save for the fact that Ron could barely hold up his arm.

It was past 1900 when the mini-bus dropped Ron at the address on the slip of paper that Major Parks gave him. It resembled a converted barn. Around the house were fruit trees, mainly apples. Ron walked up to the door, tugged his uniform jacket so that it laid flat, and rang the bell.

He heard the pitter patter of feet coming towards the door.


	39. Camelot

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Goodbye to Camelot**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Doctor Betty Director examined the chaotic reports from the few remaining Global Justice agents remaining in France. Satellites can track a specific car, read license plates from 50 miles above the earth, and can listen into any electronic communications. However, technology could not beat the power of a sharp set of ears tied to a loose tongue. 

Only two Global Justice agents were still left in Paris. One of them reported that Jan-Erik killed Drakken and several of Shego's conspirators, but Shego managed to escape. Normally, Betty Direct would have gone ape-shit at the though of a Global Justice Agent going off the reservation.

Today, she mourned the lost of a good man doing what had to be done to save his nation.

Now, there were three primary conspirators to bring to just. General Francois Dumas, the holder of France's nuclear keys, and Justice Minister Alexander Paget were hashing out the shape of their new France. However, these two were secondary targets.

The dangerous one was Shego. Someone else could handle the little Napoleons, but Shego was the brains behind the whole meltdown.

_Shego, why couldn't you just loyally follow along with Drakken's dumb plans. Why did you have to break out on your own._

Unlike the other two conspirators yapping on the airwaves to their supporters, Shego was operating from an electronic black hole. Intelligence suggested that Shego used a system of couriers to relay her _suggestions_ to Paget and Dumas. Shego and Osama Bin Laden both played from the same playbook – that is why both were still free.

Shego could not be brought to justice. There was no prison that would hold her for long. As long as she had the ability to use her plasma blast, there would never be a prison that could hold her. Scientist talk about canceling out her powers by using magnetism, but these were merely theories. There was no realistic way that Global Justice could ever permanently imprison the plasma throwing freak.

No, the only type of justice that would ever suit Shego was the justice of the grave.

Dr. Director lobbied with the power that be at the United Nations and Washington D.C. to summon some military presence to restore order and bring Shego to justice. However the United Nations did not want either the United States or Germany to control France after the Shego issue was dealt with. The United States had an insurgency in Iraqi and another in the Sudan and could not provide the type of forces that is needed in urban combat.

The best that Dr. Director could get was the fact that the United State would send in some special operations teams to provide intelligence on the ground. However, Dr. Director did not get a specific time table.

Despite having some former special operations types on the payroll, Global Justice did not have the capability to perform clandestine, long-term paramilitary operations. It was one thing to insert a small team of agents to watch an airfield or villain's lair for a week. It was another to insert a team of agents on a _wetwork_ assignment for months if need be before they could even have a shot at the target. Global Justice did not have a ninja clan at its beck and call.

However when Betty Director examined the roster for her former special operations personnel, they were all on military leave because the United States already started calling up more reservists for the new conflict in Sudan. Worse, the core of Global Justice's Special Tasks Teams were primarily US military veterans. On the plus side, it meant that almost all of these team members have functioned under unfriendly fire. No amount of training could ever ensure steadiness under fire. However, most of them decided to join the National Guard or Army Reserve so they could earn points to a military pension for showing up once a month and two weeks a year. Now they were all being reactivated.

Unfortunately, most of her non-American agents simply did not have the same level of training her American agents had. Foreign nations simply could not spend the resource to train their military personnel during their entire enlistment tour that the United States military expended just in pushing through a recruit through basic training.

Foreign law enforcement types were well trained, but they were not trained for full blown urban combat. The stats on agent performance dropped like a rock as a large percentage of the American Global Justice agents were being recalled to active military duty. Conversely the mission failure rate was spiking up to unacceptable levels.

Dr. Director had to stem the bleeding in some manner. Global Justice was in need of agents or more importantly paramilitary types who could and would be able to use lethal force. Her American supply was drying up. The Western Europeans with the exception of the English have very few veterans with combat experience. The only source for combat harden veterans was Eastern Europe.

However, the Eastern Europeans did not see eye to eye on how to enforce justice. Generations of autocratic rule taught them thatbrutality was the only way toenforce order. It wasOrder,not Justice that eastern European law enforcement valued.They were more like the old-style Irish-American New York City Police who kept order by busting heads, than the modern professionals that Global Justice traditionally sought.

However, to combat the France problem, Dr. Director needed experienced counter-insurgency experts. With the US supply drying up, she would have to go to Russia. They had plenty of young men who cut their teeth fighting the Chechen rebels. She needed young officers who knew how to coordinate and plan operations. She needed experienced grunts to sweep the streets and sewers. Russia had both. However, the Russians were never known for playing by the Marquis of Queensbury rules with respect to human rights.

When Doctor Director made her decision, she felt like a father giving away his only daughter to a brothel keeper. She knew that the old _non-lethal_ Global Justice would soon be a thing of the past.

Dr. Director opened her little book of very private phone numbers. Now it was time to call in an old debt.

"General Kerensky, please. Tell him it's from Beatrice, his old friend from America..."

With that phone call the old less lethal, Global Justice went the way of Camelot and the Holy Grail.


	40. A Muttered Name

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**A Muttered Name**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Ron cringed as the words just popped out of his mouth. Kim is in front of him, halfway around the world from Middleton, Colorado, and Ron just had to open his big dumb flytrap and insert his foot.

Kim just looked at him and started crying.

Second Lieutenant Vasilli Alexovich Boiarskii, USMC had just fornicated with the pooch on this one and Ron had to pick up the pieces.

Ron dropped his olive drab duffel bag and tried to hug his friend. However something got in the way. Ron looked down and instinctively knew that Kim's swelling belly was the result of that night.

_Black hole, black hole, black hole_ were spinning through Ron's mind. If Mr. Dr. P show up with a capsule, Ron would beg to be sent to the nearest black hole instead of having to deal with this. However Mr. Dr. P was not here and Ron had to do something.

"Kim, I'm sorry. It just came out. I messed up and I don't know how to make thing right again."

Kim tried stopping the sobs, but every time she almost was in control another wave of tear broke.

Ron did the only thing he knew. He walked Kim to the bench by the entryway, sat her down, and sat next to her. Kim launched into her tirade of emotions.

"...I thought I lost you. They told mom ... that you were ... dead. Then they told me that ... you were in a coma and I came here. I saw you attached to machine and tubing. I saw what they did to you. Then some Marine Sergeant told me. I wanted to die that night. If it was not for our daughter, I would have gone to the top of the hospital and jump off. Ironic, how a child that I once wanted to abort saved my life. Then you came back. But the doctors told me that I could not see you...and..."

Kim Possible was gibbering more than Rufus on an extra cheesy naco high. Ron had difficulty keeping up and merely waited until Kim slowed down.

"Kim, you're here, I'm here and we can work things out. We always have."

"I don't even know what to call you anymore. They told me that your name is Basil Boysky and ..."

Ron knew that he was going to have to open up and share some secrets that he kept.

"Kim, call me whatever you want. You will probably end up calling me idiot. It's not bad – it's far better than maggot."

"Ron, please hold me."

Ron wrapped his arm around the mother of his child.

"I have all night tonight and all day tomorrow. Let's take our time. I have a feeling that you are going to be talking about this even when it's time for me to collect on those government pension checks the recruiter promised me."

* * *

Pastor Wolfgang Schlosser and his wife, Anna, looked on as the couple was reunited. The heroic young man looked more like a little boy rather than some hero who repeatedly saved the world and the young lady looked more like a little girl than one who save the world.

Wolfgang Schlosser knew that these two were in so deeply in love that he actually feared for them.

His wife quipped, "They belong together, but they fit together so well that they will end up hurting each other."

Anna had to express the truth that they both saw.

There was a link so powerful that a mistimed word or a single moment's frustration could ruin both of the lovers. It seemed that neither had any kind of emotional reserve separate from the other.

"Remember when we were like that. Everyday was a emotional roller coaster. We could not function unless the other was nearby."

Wolfgang encircled his wife of thirty-six years in his arms.

"I guess that I will have another wedding to conduct pretty soon."

"Yes, just remember to keep the sermon short. I know lecturing the couple on their duties is part of the job, but Kim know what it was like without her man. I doubt that she is going to take him for granted. Not after that scare."

Wolfgang Schlosser looked on as Kim let out another tearful outburst.

"It's time to leave them be."

Anna asked, "Don't they look like the way we use to look at each another?"

Wolfgang spotted the gleam in his wife's eye.

"I think it's time for a little distraction."

Wolfgang led his wife to the stairs in the back of the house and up to their bedroom. Anna was a little old for motherhood, but not too old to fool around with her husband.

* * *

Kim could not believe that she totally lost control of herself last night. She gushed like an empty headed bimbo last night, barely letting Ron having any time to speak. With their child on the way, her mother told Kim about the mood swings and the fact that anything could set one off.

Ron was snoring just like he used to when he was a little boy sleeping over at her house.

Looking down, he looked more like a little boy than a Marine officer. However, as she traced the spider web pattern of scars on his torso, she shuddered to think of how close her child came to becoming an orphan.

Ron turned over and curled into a fetal position. Ron was muttering something incomprehensible. Kim resisted the impulse to wake Ron up by pinching his nose. Instead, she curled up next to him and placed her ear next to his mouth.

Kim was almost asleep when she heard a name.

In his sleep, Ron destroyed her dreams with a muttered name.

_Anastasia_.


	41. Running Away

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Running Away**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Kim looked in the mirror trying to figure out what was so wrong with her that Ron dreamt of another woman when he was in her embrace. She came three quarters of the way around the globe to only lose Ron to another.

Kim found her life mate to only have him attached to another. What did she have? Her looks - She was fat and ugly with the baby. Her maturity - She was a ticking time bomb of negative emotions ready to snap at the smallest thing. The fact that she could do anything – She could not cook let alone keep the most important thing in her life.

_Anything is possible for a Possible – What a tangle web we weave, when we practice to deceive._

Ron loved another. He had a phase were he stared at Penny, then Tara, then Bonnie, and then Shego. Kim knew that Tara had a crush on Ron. That Japanese girl Yoro had a major crush on Ron. And now there was another lady in his heart. Not even Zorpox could break Kim spirit, like Ron just did.

It was her time to bow out gracefully. She would raise Ron's child alone. Kim would try to be the best mommy and daddy combination she could be for her child.

_Bitch, you were nothing but a bitch to him. You actually thought that all you had to do was show up, flash your growing belly, and Ron would come back after the shit you pulled._

Kim hated herself so very much at that moment. Saving the world meant nothing when you had to depend on another to save yourself.

Kim knew that she would never deserve another dose of Ronshine. She destroyed Ron over fifteen years. Not even Bonnie hurt Ron as much as Kim did. Ron loved her just enough so that her cruel actions got past that psychological armor that Ron had developed. Ron deserved someone who he loved. Not a lifetime obligation just because Kim was a harlot who could not handle her liquor.

If she stayed, Ron would stay just because of the baby. He would grow to resent her everyday and she would grow to resent him because he loved another.

Kim wrote a brief note to Ron telling him that he was free to pursue Anastasia. She wrote another note to the Schlossers thanking them and leaving them a couple hundred Euros for helping her. Then she packed her things into a small bag. Thankfully the Schlossers lived on top of a small hill. She put the rental car in neutral, released the emergency brake, and let it roll down the hill in the pre-dawn darkness before she started the car and drove off.

* * *

Hirotaka Abe hated Ronald Dean Stoppable. Yori was his. He was the heir-apparent to the dais. Etiquette demanded that that Yori marry him to cement his claim to being the thirty-sixth grandmaster of the Yamanouchi school and the _Jian_ of the Yamanouchi Ninja Clan.

Yori was his, yet Stoppable seduced her, knock her up, and left her with twins growing in her womb without even sending back a letter.

Thankfully, Stoppable was dead. He was killed by some black monkey-men in Somalia. In Hirotaka's world, there were the true Japanese, the purebred ethnic Japanese who lived outside of Japan, the Japanese-mixtures that were prevalent primarily in the United States, then the other Asians, then the Europeans. On the bottom of the barrel were the Africans. They were nothing but monkey-hybrids who did nothing but bred little monkeys, spread HIV, and killed each other for meat. They were not even human, but scum to be wiped off of his boots after he stomped them.

It was one thing for a Japanese male such as himself to dip his wick into a Caucasian honey pot. However, it was a sin for a true Japanese female to carry the spawn of an inferior race. Hirotaka would be the first to admit that he was racist, but he did not care about political correctness.

Now Yori was good for nothing but being a harlot. She was the type his former classmate and on-&-off lover Fukushima pimped out to drunken westerners for a few thousand yen. She belong to him, yet Yori gave away her honor to a filthy _jingai_.

Now he had to bite his tongue. Yori was Master Sensei's only child and so he forgave her for the indiscretion. If either or both of the twins were male, Master Sensei was so healthy and obstinate that he would live long enough to pass his position on to his grandson. Hirotaka had carefully prepared his poison. If Yori bear a son, Hirotaka vowed that the child would not live long enough to suckle from his mother's breast. No one will take away Hirotaka's place on the dais. No one.

In due time, Master Sensei will move on to the glade. Then Hirotaka will reduce Yori to her true position. If the children are female, he will personally break them in. Yori and her line were nothing but sluts for his pleasure.

Hirotaka turned to face the young prostitute cowering on his futon. She was one of Fukushima's new Chinese imports. She fought off two of Fukushima's trainers before the others tied her down. She was so beautifully bound for his pleasure. Tonight, Hirotaka planed to break her spirit. As he did so, he imagined that it was Yori.


	42. The Oh Sht Factor

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**The Oh S#T Factor**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Ron could not think straight anymore.

Between the pain medications and the life altering fact that he was going to be a father, he found it hard to follow any kind of logical thought. He did not want to admit it, but he was becoming a pill junkie, just like Mrs. Stoppable, his step-mother.

Deep down inside, Ron was not ready for any kind of responsibility. He was the god of slackers. He perfected the art of loafing off. It was his defense. Fail enough times and no one would expect anything from you.

The Stoppables wanted a clone of their son, Ron. The real Ron was just like his daddy – One of those A personality types like Kim with a touch of sadism. Mr. Stoppable tried to mold Ron into the same mold. Slacking was the only real way Ron had at getting back at the Stoppables. They beat him so he frustrated their desire for the perfect son.

Ron spent fifteen years hiding his intelligence. He spent fifteen playing the buffoon. He got to the point that he instinctively shirk anything resembling responsibility.

Now with a daughter on the way, Ron had to step up to the plate. Ron was now a marine lieutenant who would soon be expected to lead real marines into combat. Part of him wanted to retreat back into the darkness. There he could not endanger the lives of others. However, his little girl needed a real daddy.

_Christ, what do I know about being a real father? My real dad was a son of a bitch who care more for his budding political career than the fact that he had two kids dying ina Moscoworphanage. Mr. Stoppable, all he was good for was getting drunk and beating up a weak little kid every time he got a little frustrated._

Ron knew what not to do. However, he did not know what to do. However, he could not let Kim know about his past. Kim was so perfect. He on the other hand was a slug that fate constantly shook salt upon. He only hoped that his child be more like Kim, instead of a loser like him.

He turned over and Kim was not there. This did not alarm him since KP was the gung ho early to rise type. The Ron man was about the night. Even as a marine recruit, he did not look forward to mornings.

However, something was wrong. Kim's side of the bed was too cold. Rolling over, Ron saw the alarm clock. 0500 was a little early, even for Kim.

Groggy, Ron tried to roll out of bed.

Slam, he hit the floor with a loud thump.

Ron just laid there, too groggy to risk standing, too hurt to fall back asleep. The impact rattled his bones. Because of the march and the coma, he had no padding to cushion the blow.

"_Mein Gott en Himmel._ You should stay in bed. Where is Kim?"

It was Anna Schlosser, their hostess. The entire conversation was in German, however Vasilii'snative tongueclicked in as he replied back in German, "Kim is an early riser, I was going to check the restrooms and the kitchen."

"She's not their. Her parents are on the telephone and want to speak to her."

With a loud grunt, Ron pulled himself to a standing position using the steel bed frame. He staggered a few steps towards the bathroom before falling flat on his face again.

Anna Schlosser motions for Ron to remain sitting as she called her husband to help Ron back to the bed.

Five minutes later, Mr. Schlosser came back in a panic.

"Kim left. She left this behind."

Ron grabbed the letter, squinted his blurry eyes, and tried to read Kim's delicate handwriting. After half a dozen tries, he mutely handed the letter to Frau Schlosser.

When Frau Schlosser read the letter, Ron's world collapsed into darkness.

Ron Stoppable awoke in the emergency room as some corpsman was finished pumping his stomach. Never had Ron be so disgusted with himself. Kim needed him and he could not even get out of bed, because he just had to take the painkillers last night.

"Lieutenant," Major Parks said, "you almost died from an overdose of pain killers. According to the letter, Kim gave you an extra dose so you will stay asleep, however in you condition a normal dose is strong and a double dose would have killed you save for the quick thinking of the Schlossers."

Ron tried to get up, but the staff was holding him down.

"You will stay here. I got the MP's looking for Kim. She has a lot to answer for."

Ron tried to fight, he tried, but a little pin prick and he was fast asleep.

* * *

Kim Possible was in tears as she drove. She destroyed her future and the future of her child with her pride. She could not stand the thought of not being Ms. Perfect Possible. She could not accept the fact that she was human.

Ron was always there. Ron accepted her, despite all the back stabbing she did. Eric the synthdrone. Her calling in the Health Department to close Chez Ron. The time she threaten Tara so that she would not pursue Ron just so that Kim would remain in control of Ron's life.All the times she took credit for Ron's work.

Kim Possible did not deserve happiness and fate obliged. She bowed out leaving Ron free to love Anastasia.

The roads were slick from a recent rain. Kim was not use to driving over one hundred fifty kilometer an hour. And she was too distracted by her guilt to concentrate on driving.

The last thing she remembered was a screech and hitting the wall.

There was not even time to think of the word shit.


	43. Vet's Office

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Vet's Office**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Max Standard led the way through the Parisian sewers. The Surefire tactical light attached to the foregrip of his Heckler & Koch 5.56x45mm NATOsubmachine gun was lighting the way. 

The dream was no more. There would be no final victory for Dr. Drakken. There would be no final _I won and you couldn't stop me_ taunt for Shego to hurl at Miss Perfect Kim Possible. Dr. Drakken was dead, killed by a Global Justice sniper.

The old Shego would have gone on a rampage and seek Dr. Director's head for her fireplace mantle.

The only thing on Shego's mind was the well being of her child. According to the intercepted messages, the new government of France (the one she help put in power) was consolidating power and put the entire onus of the breakdown of France on Shego.

Three times more times, other tried to kill her, but Max Standard managed to kill the pursuers before they could kill the pair of fugitives. However, the last battle was a close thing. If Shego did not have plasma powers, Max would have bled to death. Now Max was hobbling on a bad leg.

"It about two more blocks above ground. It's a veterinarian's office. Maybe there are still medical supplies."

Shego was about to respond when she felt a sudden cramp. She stumbled.

Max turned around.

"Christ, you're bleeding."

Shego felt light-head as Max picked her up and carried her like a baby. It was an eternity before he set her down. Max dug frantically through the medical supplies.

"Boss, I have some combat medic training, but nothing on emergency deliveries. I am not going to sod you over with tidings of great joy. The baby is coming and nothing will stop it. There is a good chance that the both of you will die today."

Shego grunted as she felt another severe cramping downstairs. She failed, she failed to carry her child and now it was two months premature. Thanks to Shego's meddling, there were no neo-natal units to save her child. Shego never wanted to die so bad.

With his Cold-Steel Peacemaker II, Max slit off Shego's clothes. Shego looked down on her swollen, blue-veined bump.

"Boss, I am going to need your help. When I tell you, you have to get into a squatting position. Then I will tell you when to push. I want you to keep on pushing no matter how hard it hurts."

Shego nodded.

Max almost collapsed from the effort to position Shego into a squatting position.

"Push, goddamn it. Push or I will kick you in your fat ass. Push or Kim Possible will beat you. You can beat that uppity bitch. Push and you will have a beautiful child that will make hers look so stupid and ugly. Push and you will be able to defeat that red headed cunt. Push!"

With a scream of pain, Shego feel as if she was being torn apart.

"Push or you will just be a nothing. Don't let Kim beat you. Don't let Kim win. Push or she will beat you. Push and your child will live."

Shego could not longer hear Max encouraging her. Instincts that ensure that her mother and her mother's mother delivered healthy children kicked in. She instinctively flexed her vaginal muscle and with a splat her child was delivered to the world.

Max was swiftly tying off the cord when another contraction hit.

"There is another one coming."

With the flick of his combat knife, Max cut the cord connecting Shego to her oldest child. With a quick swipe of a cloth, he cleaned off the mucus. Turning the child over, Max thumped it on the rear and it make it first protest at the injustices of the world

Max put the baby in a box thathe lined with paper towels.

Shego screamed, "It's coming."

It took five more minute for her exhausted body to push another life out of Shego's womb.

Max barely caught the child. An eternity latter, Shego pushed out the afterbirth before collapsing.

Max looked down on the fraternal twins. A boy and a girl, both very small. He found some clean surgical cloths and wrap the babies in them. It was time to remove the lamps from the chicken incubator and rig up an incubator for the twins.

Shego woke up to see Max positioning the twins into the jerry-rigs incubator.

"You are the proud mother of twins. One boy, one girl - I hope that you have names ready or they will grow up believing that their name is boy and girl.

Shego looked upon the faces of her children. She had managed to bring them into the world. However she was a failure. They would have to grow up living in fear of the authorities or one of Shego's coconspirators coming in to sort out accounts.

Her next challenge was to start producing milk. However, mother nature ensure that milk would not be one of the worries that would plague the new mother.


	44. Rattenkreig, First Movement

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**_Rattenkrieg_, First Movement**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Fate had rendered its verdict.

The dice was rolled and fate once again rolled on a set of snake eyes for Vasilii Boiarskii. Every moment things were looking up, fate, a fickle bitch, would ensure that another load of shit would fall upon Vasilii Boiarskii.

Vasilii sucked it up. He always sucked up the pain like a Kurby vacuum suck up dirt. However, there came a point where the bag would burst. His bag exploded like an atomic bomb.

Dr. Parks looked in on his patient. The young marine was beyond broken. He had lost hope. He had lost everything that keep him anchored to this life. It was seven days since Kim's disappearance. Seven days of uncertainty. Seven days of the young man withdrawing into some dark corner of his psyche where he destroyed himself.

The award and commissioning ceremony came and went. The young man tried to act like nothing was wrong. He tried to act as if his girlfriend and child never existed.

However, Dr. Parks got disturbing reports from the Schlossers about Boiarskii. The young man was drinking until he was beyond fall down drunk. He awed the locals with the quantity of alcohol that he consumed on an hourly basis. Twice he came close to experiencing fatal levels of alcohol poisoning.

Last night, Dr. Parks had to talk the young man down from jumping off the top of the hospital. Thankfully, no one else was present to witness the incident.

Last night, Dr. Parks got the young man to open up.

2nd Lieutenant Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii was a young man who was methodically striped of his dignity, his self-esteem, his sense of purpose. Fate striped him of everything that made life worth living and those that he loved. The young marine had more pain and suffering in his background than any Hollywood scriptwriter could pile unto a fictitious serial killer. Only his self-imposed duty to the redhead and her concept of right kept the young man from going down the path of damnation.

Now Boiarskii lost the last of his dreams. He lost the last chance for a real future. All he had now were the Marine Corps. Duty was a cold comfort when one has lost love.

Major Parks never wanted to kill a lady before, but now he wanted to slowly squeeze the life out of the redhead. She not only broke Boiarskii, but almost killed him with when she overdosed him with pain medication.

Dr. Parks had a quiet word with Boiarskii's new company commander. The company commander ensured that Boiarskii was going to be a very busy young marine officer. There would be no more time to get fall down drunk. There would be no more time to even think of that redhead. The young marine will be spending the next couple weeks undergoing an intensive training schedule.

* * *

Second Lieutenant Vasilii Boiarskii was the subject of awe on the base. According to the scuttlebutt in the enlisted barracks, Vasilii was some psycho-killer who the United State Marine Corps kept on a mighty short leash until they needed bodies stacked like cordwood. It was rumored that he was a sniper before he was given a commission. Everyone knew that he had a mandatory counseling session with one of the head shrinks every week.

Every morning after the mandatory physical training sessions, the marines went to the rifle ranges. There they would always see Boiarskii at the range with an old M14 rifle blasting away at some camouflaged metal pop-up plates that the range staff moved around on a daily basis.

The higher ups had mobilized the scattered units within Germany into some task force, just in case the President had the US military sort out the France situation. Boiarskii was now platoon leader, 2nd Platoon (Marines), Alpha Company, 7056th Infantry Battalion (Reinforced) of the 45th Regimental Combat Team. His company CO was an US Army artillery officer whose last command was a battery of 150mm SP Gun-Howitzers, and his XO was a former F-16C fighter jock from the Air Force. The other three platoon leaders, thankfully, all did some time in Iraqi, Afghanistan, or Sudan.

Overnight, the unofficial motto of the 45th RCT became _The Blind Leading the Guide Dogs._ To combat this sense of disconnect, the brass had the 45th RCT undergo a crash course in urban combat.

Part of this was daily marksmanship training. The targets were placed at various ranges, but without fail, Boiarskii methodically knocked each one down in between puffs of some non-filtered Turkish cigarettes and would push his marines to the same marksmanship standards that he exhibited. In doing so, the marines of 2nd platoon were burning through ammo like a fraternity burns though free beer.

Afterwards, the chain smoking bastard would run his platoon into the ground with Indian sprints uphill towards the barracks before embarking on the rest of the training schedule. When they first saw their new LT, the junior enlisted men thought they were getting some ROTC kid who graduated early. Once the NCO's passed down the word on the kid did the young marines start squirming in fear.

Here was a stone cold killer who had nothing to live for but converting life into death. He had no family but the Corps. He lived, ate, breathed, and shit the Corps. He was a living testament on how much the boot camp cadre could eff up a recruit's mind – Not even Private Pile of Full Metal Jacket fame was as eff up as the new lieutenant. He was the legendary killing machine that gave DI's a stiffy. He was probably the type that would order them to assault a machine gun nest with nothing but a toothbrush or assault a tank with nothing but a log.

However, the marines were not prepared for some of Lieutenant Boiarskii's more ingenious methods of training. Every time they thought it was time to rest, Boiarskii would turn wood, rocks, a hill, or even other marines into instruments of torture. Anytime on their rears, they spent being taught topics from explosives handling to combat medicine. There was not one part of Boiarskii's marines that was not bruised or blistered. There was not one marine whose head was pounding with information. Whenever there were complaints, Boiarskii silenced the platoon with a stare.

Boiarskii did not mention his medal or accomplishments. However, they all read the citation and excerpts from Boiarskii's after action reports. Boiarskii never asked them to do something that he did not do himself. He led the way. He suffered the same aches and pains. He pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion and took his marines along with him.

Ron knew that none of his marines loved him or even thought that his mind was firing on all cylinders. He knew that he was no longer just another marine grunt, but two steps removed from the right hand of God or the left hand of the devil. Everyday, Ron pushed himself and by extension his marines. He was in pain every night. He lived on a steady diet of the pain killers that almost took his life. However, the physical pain was nothing compared to the pain that she caused him.

Somewhere out in the world, there was Kim and his daughter. Fate ensured that he would never meet his child, that he would never truly be the father she deserved. However, he could protect her by protecting the world. He could protect his marines.

He had been saved because Yori that him that when he felt that he was going to fail, that he could always push pastthe limits that his mind set for him. He would push past pain, hunger, and anguish. He had nothing to live for. He had nothing binding him to this life. However, most of his marines had family. Ron wrote letters to the families of his squad mates back in the Sudan. He vowed to train up his marines so that he would never have to write another letter of condolence again.

He cursed himself for thinking that he would have a family to love and one that would love him. He was a monster. He had enjoyed the chaos of battle. He enjoyed the coppery-acid taste that one gets from smelling a vast quantity of blood. He was everything his men thought he was and more. All he had binding him to this life was the duty to his men. He knew their next assignment. The name would be changed to something that would be a nice sound bite, but operation _Freakshow_ was an apt description.

Boiarskii did not need a course in military history to know that France was going to be a tough nut to crack. The United States was not going to accept a government that Shego help put in place, even if they turned her over. Although the French army shattered, its elite units were loyal to the junta that now was imposing order. The NCO and officer ranks of French Foreign Legion were staffed with combat veterans who seen their share of urban combat. Urban combat was the most brutal fighting that any marine or solder could be tasked with.

Tomorrow would be another day of training. Ron studied everything he could about _Rattenkrieg_, or literally rat warfare, and the sewers under the city of lights. Tomorrow he was going to make his Marines learn it too. It would be his task to lead his Marines into those sewers and the rubbled buildings above it. He vowed to bring them all back home. He would teach them. He would ensure that they would live. However, he prayed for death to take him every single night before he swallowed a couple pills and shut his eyes.


	45. Rattenkreig, Second Movement

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**_Rattenkrieg_, Second Movement**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

"Platoon, Atten-hutt. 

"At Ease."

Ron looked at the faces of his marines. For three weeks, he spent seven days a week, eighteen to twenty hours per day, pushing them and himself into a team. He examined them.

If Ron was alone, he would rush into France. However, he did not want to be responsible for the lives of the marines assembled in from of him. He did not want to be responsible to their families when they did not come back.

"Marines, the 45th Regimental Combat Team have the honor of being tasked going to gay Par-ree and kicking some butt. You have heard me yapping over the past three weeks, so I am going to keep it short.

"You all have proven yourselves the best marines in God's beloved Corps. Even thought the 2nd platoon, alpha battalion, 7065 Infantry Battalion, 45th Regimental Combat Team is an ad hoc unit slapped together from embassy marines and those of us who just happened to enjoy the hospitality of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center when the balloon came up. Never the less, history will still judge each and every one of you standing here today. What kind of legend will you forge?

"Let me tell you what kind of legend I expect you to forge. You will be brothers in arms that take care of each other in good times and bad. You will be another chapter of honor along with the Marines that fought at Tripoli, Bloody Ridges, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Iraqi, and Sudan.

"I am already so proud of you that if God gave me the choice of heaven without you or hell with you, you bet that the devil is gone to cower in fear that the marines of second platoon will come to kick his scrawny red ass and make him cry uncle.

"Gentlemen, we have our orders. In three days, we depart to take back France from the forces of evil. We have to defeat an enemy that is just as evil as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mr. Mustache Hussein, or Osama bin Laden. As marine riflemen, we are tasked to clear out the cities, the sewers, and anyplace where the tanker and fighter jocks cannot go. We will get all the tough missions. We will have to clear the enemy from every rat hole and shit pipe in France.

"The enemy will try to kill us. The enemy will try to break our spirits. However, if you do your jobs and take care of each other, we shall all return home. Our goal is simple – No one get left behind, no one goes home on a medivac flight, or worse in a pine box. My order to each and every one of you is when the operation is over that we all muster back here and host a cold one. Oorah!"

"Oorah!"

"Boys, battalion cut us all twenty-four hours of leave effective 0001 tomorrow morning. I want you sleep, eat, and live it up until 1155 tomorrow night. However, I want you all be muster in condition to fight. Anyone that comes messed up will undergo a round of my usual workout. If anyone wants an idea, just think that what I am putting your though is my usual warm-up.

Ron hated his mission. It was one thing for him to risk himself. Now he had others to save. However, the first two pieces of advice that Major Parks gave him were that a leader cannot express uncertainty in front of the troops, and that the key to command is to lead from the front and beat into their minds that you will lead them all the way from the front.

Ron, with all his accumulated phobias, now lived in fear that he would break down into his old gibbering self when his marines needed a bedrock of courage. They needed someone like KP. They needed someone would could face down the world's supply of bad guys with confidence and without fear. However, fate tapped Ron, the boy never lead anything more than a certain naked mole rat to the nearest Bueno Nacho for some extra cheesy nacos, to lead these men into battle.

* * *

Despite living with humans for most of his life, Rufus could not understand them. 

Something was wrong. Ron was not his usual self when he sent Rufus to Kim's siblings. He could smell Ron's child growing inside of Kim. However, no matter how hard Rufus tried, he could not get the pair back together.

Kim was breaking all the rules.

Naked mole rats were social animals whose colonies were built around the breeding queen. The queen was the center of naked mole rat society. Kim's mother was getting too old to breed so it was natural that Kim would step up to become the new breeding queen. The new breeding queen was supposed to remain with the colony. Kim was the new queen, yet she ran off.

Ron was Rufus' best friend. However, in naked mole rat society any breeding male was ultimately expendable. Ron was obviously Kim's breeding male. Ron was important, but not so important that the colony would collapse without him.

Rufus was not cold hearted. He had mourned Ron when Kim's siblings told him that Ron was dead. However, Ron managed to sire another generation before he died. Now that Kim was gone, Ron's child would be born without the support of the colony.

The colony was in a panic. Kim no longer kept in contact with her siblings or her parents. Now Rufus was really worried. Never before did Kim leave without Ron and Rufus by her side.

It was a mistake when the twins prevent Rufus from hiding in Kim's luggage. Kim was alone with the future of the colony growing in her womb. Without Kim, Rufus' colony would be peril. Kim's siblings would in due time locate breeding queens of their own, but it would be a long time before the colony would be certain that it would continue to exist to the next generation.

Rufus was not a young naked mole rat. Odds are that he would not live long enough to ensure that Kim's siblings would sire another generation to save the colony. He had to bring Kim back to the colony. He had to ensure that Ron's offspring would grow up part of the colony. The colony had to continue at all costs.

* * *

It was just like the missions that he went on with Kim. The worst part was always the waiting. Waiting gave fear time to cannibalize the mind of its victim. The worst part was that the part of Ron's brain called Vasilii Boiarskii would not kick into gear. Vasilii was the warrior. Ron was the sniveling coward who freaked over the smallest thing. 

2nd Platoon (Marine) was spread out over a two LAV-25's and eight Humvees for the ride into France. Alpha Company consisted of a tank platoon (1st platoon, call sign Wiley Coyote), two infantry platoons (2nd and 3rd platoon, call signs Tramp and Lady respectively), a weapons platoon (4th platoon, call sign Thumper), and company headquarters section (call sign Road Runner).

The problem was that Alpha Company was an ad hoc unit with a shortage of infantry officers. The company commander was an armor officer and wore a _second hat_ as the tank platoon leader. The executive officer was an artillery officer and wore a _second hat_ as weapons platoon leader. 2nd Lieutenant Vasilii Boiarskii was the onlyofficer with infantry experience assigned to alpha company. 3rd platoon was lead by Sergeant First Class Daniel Rodriguez who doubled as the company sergeant.

All units were under strength and untried in combat. However, the ranks were sprinkled with hopefully enough combat veterans to bind the untried unit together.

The vehicles past a horde of refugees fleeing toward the German-French border. A modern western nation became a third world nation. It was the twenty-first century counterpart to the old black and white films of Eastern European refugees fleeing the Nazis and the Soviets during the Second World War.

The mission was simple. Take Route A4/E50 west though Metz, Verdun, Châlons-en-Champagne, Reims, Château-Thierry, Meraux, and then sweep through the south side of Paris on the way to the Channel coast, clearing every city on the way. Intelligence from on high stated that the bulk of the French forces were in Paris. However, it was the same intelligence shop that once told Ron's superiors that the Sudanese Islamic Militia would not risk a direct confrontation with the American military.

Simple missions were always the ones that went FUBAR. Take a small stretch of beach – Dead marines. Take a small little island – Dead marines. Clear a short stretch of road – Dead marines. The pattern was simple. Seven cities – Seven chances to for the enemy to convert live marines to dead marines.

* * *

It started at Verdun. Despite it being 92 yearsafter the brutal battle where German General Erich von Fahkenhayn futily tried to bleed the French army dry, one could still see the remnants of the ancient trenchs and shell holes. Over 400,000Frenchmen and a like number of Germans met their end in this area. 92 years later the second battle of Verdun would be fought between the 45th Regimental Combat Team and elements of the 2nd French Foriegn Legion. 

Just like the first battle, the first shots were perversely launch by artillery. However, instead of high explosive shells, both sides fired smoke and tear gas. The anti-gas alarms went off and the marines put on their MOPP suits. Just like the Marines at Belleau Woods, the thoughts of poison gas began to terrify the marines.

From inside the LAV-25, Ron felt the recoil of the 25-mm chain gun as it fired upon suppected enemy positions. The tanks were providing direct fire support. However, it was second and third platoons' task to clear the eastern edge of town. The LAV was pulling forward. Then it lurched as the crew opened the doors.

"Go, go, go, go"

Marines exited the eight wheeled armored vehicle and quickly moved to their assigned positions.

Ron grabbed his Hooligan tool and slamed it into the door.

"Grenades up!"

Once it was time toact,the part of his mind that he grew to accept as Vasilii Boiarskii took over. Doubt surrendered to certain. The platoon had to take over this block andthe next so that the enemy could not cut off supplies as the 45th RCT went deeper into thecity of Verdun. Vasilii yanked the bar and the door popped open. One of the men spray the entryway with his M4 carbine while Sergeant Reyes toss in two fragmentation grenades. Everyone hit the deck.

BOOM, BOOM, and a scream.

Vasilii's nosetook in the coppery order of blood as he dashed inside. Inside it was too close to use the heavy 7.62x51mm NATO Springfield Armory battle rifle. Vasilii quickly slung the rifle and drew his Berretta M9 pistol. 115-grain round-nose was not known for its stopping power, but with the retirement of the venerable Colt M1911A1 .45ACP semiautomatic pistol and the legendary 230-grain full metal jacket slug it threw, Vasilii knew that only a head shot would be fatal in today's era of ballistic armor.

There were refuges in the building. No more grenades for now.

"If it has a gun, shoot it. Otherwise, zip them up!"

Twenty seconds later, Vasilii heard the rip of automatic gun fire and two words that Ron Stoppable did not want to hear, "Man down.

Vasilii looked down on his vest.

Police Special Tactics and Weapons Teams throughout America have perfected the use of distraction devices, more commonly known as a flashbang. Although most of his marines only heard of the devices, Vasilii was bless to have two marine corps reservist whose other job was kicking down doors on meth labs and crack houses.

"Miller and Obyo. Flash on my command. Your three, follow me in. Everyone else, if we don't call clear in twenty, toss in a couple frags."

Miller and Obyo nodded.

"Go."

Miller and Obyo each tossed in a distraction devices.

Vasilii rushed in, made an immediate left and spotted the stuned Legionaire. Before he realized what was happening, Vasilii had his muzzle in the mouth of the enemy. The three others cleared the room, called off the frags, and started zip tying Vasilii's prisoner. Hospital Corpsman 'Doc' Billy Holloway was started to treat the down marine. PFC Norris was hit just below the vest.

"Parley voo English?"

The stuned Legionaire responded with a "No."

Vasilii did not have anyone who was fluent in Frog, just a couple kids who took some French back in high school.

"Fuller, you supposedly took AP French back in high school. You ask this guy to tell you where his boss is sitting."

Fuller asked the stunned Legionaire the question.

"Negative, LT. He is just giving us the big three."

"Doc, everyone get Norris back to the LAV. I am going to have a man-to-man talk to our pal."

The marines looked at their LT.

"Get Norris back to the LAV and back to the aid station. Fuller, I need you to translate everything I say verbatim."

Vasilii looked in the eyes of the Legionaire and saw fear. The man did know enough English to understand that Vasilii was contemplating not playing by the Geneva Convention. Especially when Vasilii removed his gear and his shirt.

Vasilii pulled his K-Bar knife out of the sheath.

"Private, I will speak very slowly. Please tell our friend here that I have learned from the best in the business on how to keep a man alive. My friend, they kept me alive for twenty one days. They show me how to break a man with pain. No one can hold out forever. I am living proof. The best in my business were all taught the way I was taught. I learned via pain. It was twenty-one days before my own saved me, but it was too late. I learned to savor my own suffering. I dumped my little red headed bitch and found a little slut that loved my attentions. Pain can be so much the pleasure."

Vasilii cut himself in the arm and took in a deep breath. He rolled his eyes as if he was on the verge of an orgasim.

"After a while, you get to enjoy inflicting it. Both on youself and others." Vasilii cut himself again and made a moan of pleasure. "I remember the last one. I remember his eyes. The eyes are the window to the spirit. There is a love that exist between giver and receiver. Between one that cut and one that is cut. I miss that love. I miss that pleasure."

"Sir, I cannot translate that verbatim."

"Private, do your best. Our friend here will understand. Now or after a little waltz with me and Matilda here.

The prisoner was on the verge of crying. The look of pleasure when the scared man cut himself was too much.

The prisoner confessed, "I speak English, not well, but well enough to understand. My chef ... my officer is to the northeast of the church, a red brick warehouse with a company of infantry."

"Too bad the press of duty prevents me from showing you a pleasure that most men will never know. The love of the blade is perhaps the truest of all loves. Private, get someone to accompany you and take our pal here back to Major Candles."

When Private Fuller left with the prisoner, Vasilii covered his cuts and put on his gear before calling in his platoon sergeant. They had a company of enemy to boot out of Verdun before going on the road to Châlons-en-Champagne and eventually Paris.

* * *

Kim Possible awoke in a hospital bed.

The last thing that she remember was the car sliding out of control off the road, over the grass, and into a wall.

All she could feel was a neck brace strangling her and pain everywhere else.

Her arms were locked inside a cast and the neck brace prevented her from looking down.

Kim Possible laid in the bed for what seemed like an eternity. However, she felt no movement. The baby always moved.

_Kimmie, you fucked up. You lost Ron and now you lost your daughter._

Kim Possible now had no reason to carry on. She deserved to be hanged, beheaded,gased, shot,or whatever the Germans now did for capital punishment. She screwed everything up and now there was no hope of salvation.

Kim Possible contemplated ending her own life. She had lost everything worth having. She lost the one man who loved her. She lost her child. She disobeyed her family when she went off to seek Ron. She now reaped the whirlwind of her own shortcommings.

Kim Possible closed her eyes and prayed that somehow God would end her life before she would wake up in the morning.


	46. Rattenkreig, Third Movement

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**_Rattenkrieg_, Movement 3**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Warning: Adult Language

* * *

"Thank you, Herr Mueller ... I should be there in an hour and a half. She knows me ... Thank you."

After twelve days, Dr. Parks finally tracked down the red headed bitch responsible for almost killing Lieutenant Boiarskii.

_How in the hell could I ever trust her? She sounded so sincere that I bought her line about _helping_ Vee. Good, I fell for the pretty face. We all fell for the pretty, expectant mother. Now I only pray that Vee's kid takes after her father._

The thought of the betrayal rankled Dr. Parks.

He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to kill her. But for now, he would settle for breaking her as she broke her lover.

_Bitch. All that red-headed cunt was ever good for was destroying and deceiving. No even Delilah could eff up Samson as much as that Kim Whore mess up Vasilii._

Dr. Parks took a deep breath. Vasilii needed him. Vee was still in need of help. Dr. Parked remembered the look on Vee's face when Vee was going to jump off the roof of the hospital after she left him in the middle of the night. No matter how hard that no good for anything _slut_ abuse Vasilii, he would forgive her.

When Dr. Parks told Vee to date another girl, Vee nearly came unglued. When Vee's unit was given a day of leave before going off to combat, Dr. Parks had to get Vee's company commander to order Vee off base.

The experience almost destroyed Vasilii.

Vasilii had something that girls instinctively were attracted to. It was not confidence or mojo. It was more of that younger, goofy brother vibe that perked their interest in the lonely boy.

Vee was a heterosexual male. Like any male bereft of love, Vee did not turn down an invitation to the bedroom from a reasonably attractive female. What Dr. Parks did not expect was the intense guilt trip that Vee experience afterward.

It was 2230 and Vee was knocking on the door of Dr. Parks' quarters. Vee did the deed and then had to go out and get fall down drunk in a feeble attempt to deal with the guilt of not being loyal to the bitch that flushed Vasilii down the crapper like a used condom. Vasilii deserved someone better, but his heart was being held hostage by _her_.

Dr. Parks remembered overdosing with Vasilii with strong coffee in between doses of pure oxygen and food to absorb the alcohol before Vasilii had to report back to his commanding officer.

Now it was Dr. Parks' turn to pay the harlot back in full.

"Dr. Park, I ..."

"Kim, I pulled some strings to speak to you. Did anyone here speak to you?"

Kim tried to shake her head, but finally croaked a "No."

Dr. Park suppressed a smile. He was going to destroy her. He was going to break her in a way that only her worst enemies could enjoy.

"You are under arrest for one count of premeditated murder, fleeing a crime scene, and reckless endangerment of your unborn child."

"What?"

Dr. Park used his _I am your friend and it's my sad duty to tell you the bad news voice_.

In short, he was going to lie.

"In your note, you admit to giving Vasilii or Ron Stoppable an extra dose of pain killers and sleeping pills."

"I did it so that he would be free to love Anastasia."

Dr. Park shook his head.

"Yes, he loved her. Do you not love your brothers? Anastasia was his twin sister."

"But he had no sister...he was an only child."

"There was a lot of sad thing that he kept from you. He was born in Estonia. His real mother was executed by the Soviets before his eyes for espionage. His real grandfather and great-grandfather had ties to the forest brothers and SS. He was nearly beaten and starved to death in a Moscow orphanage set up for the children of executed political dissidents. It was called the _Doll House_, a pretty name for a place were over ninety percent of the kids did not even make it through their first year.

"Only the fact that the Russians could make money off of international adoptions and white slavery during and after the fall of the Soviet Union ensured that your boyfriend was not killed before he was adopted to a couple who lost their child. His sister was not as lucky. The sister he vowed to protect was taken away, turned into a child prostitute and ultimately died at the hands of a brutal client at age twelve. You know that that he only found out about her fate two years ago. You know that he still feels guilty about being unable to protect her. He was four when he had to step up to protect his family, and he still blames himself for failing to save her. He was only four, but he still believes that it was his fault instead of the fault of the criminals that ran that facility.

"When he came to America, he was turned away by his father's family and adopted out. He was not allowed to be Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii anymore. They told him to be Ronald Dean Stoppable. They punished him because he could never replace a two year old child that died in a pool accident. They punished him because he could not speak English and only spot a smattering of German, Estonian, and Russian. They beat him for every mispronounced word, every time he slipped and use a German, Estonian, or Russian word.

"They broke him. Mr. Stoppable used an electrical cord or belt buckle on him for every little frustration that Mr. Stoppable encountered. Mrs. Stoppable beat him, but worse told him that he was nothing and that she hated him. He was four when Mr. Stoppable circumcised him without any painkiller. They cut him off from his past so they can pretend that a certain tragedy did not occur in theirs. They destroyed his spirit save for a little piece of hope that his love for you, Kim Possible.

"You were the one thing that made his life worth living. You were the one thing that kept him from becoming the next Charles Manson, BTK or Green River Killer. He loved you. He wanted nothing but your happiness. He was worried that he would not be good enough for you. He was worried that you would not love him if he told you about his real family. He was worried that you would not want someone _as messed up as me._"

Kim was shocked by the truth that Dr. Parks was sharing with her. Ron needed her and she ... she destroyed him. Now she knew why that Ron did not want her coming to his house. Now she knew why Ron would _be sick_ for days when they were kids. Now she knew why Ron insisted that she stay at her home when they encountered the brain switching machine.

"...in his weakened condition, doubling up the dose was enough to paralyze his chest muscles. The autopsy revealed that he suffocated to death. According to the medical examiner, he was fully conscious when he was dying, but could not summon any help. His lungs were literally crushed by his chest. As for the fleeing the crime scene, there is a German law that forbids criminals to leave the scene of a crime they committed. Also in German, there is no thing such as a legal abortion. According to what I know, if an expectant mother endangers her child it is the same as endangering your child after it's born in the eyes of the German legal system."

"But ..."

Kim now had images of Ron's chest crushing his lungs running in her mind.

"German law runs on the Napoleonic Code, not the common law code used in Britain and America. There is no such thing as legal precedent, an insanity defense, guaranteed representation by an attorney, court interpreters, plea bargaining, or trial by jury. It's guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Normally I would not be allowed to see you, but I had a friend cross-credentialed with this hospital so they think that I am just another doctor making a physical assessment on the status of your health."

Kim looked at Dr. Parks and totally broke down.

"As for your child, the trauma of the accident was too extent for you to continue carrying the child. The doctors did a C-section. Your child is a couple weeks premature and is in critical condition in the neonatal unit. Because of the nature of the charges and the fact that you were not in your right minds according to the EMT's and emergency room staff ... they won't let you see her.

"According to German law, she is now a ward of the state pending the legal outcome of your case. However, odds are that the German courts, bowing to pressure from the American consulate will grant custody to your parents. However, there are no guarantees if Vasilii's parents decide to waive their rights and just grant custody to the German Youth Authorities. However to do that, you have to go to trial first.

"I hate to give you bad news, but its best that you know what's really happening. Unlike in America, there is no such thing as patient-physician confidentiality in Germany so don't ask or tell the staff anything. They are allowed to lie and entrap you. Pretend that there is no case pending. No matter what they do to you, tell you, or hint to you - It's very important that you go along with me on this. Just sleep. If you are unconscious, they cannot interrogate you. If they push, act crazy. They may put you in the loony bin. However if you are there, they cannot put you on trial nor can they seize custody of your daughter before the American Consulate can step in and ensure that your daughter be given to your family."

Kim could not believe what Dr. Parks is saying to her. She was now one of the criminal she chased in her youth. No, she was worse. She killed Ron and her child's fate lied God knows where because of her. She had no choice but to act crazy.

Kim wondered if she was already crazy. It made sense in a twisted way. For years, she was obsessed with being Ms. Perfect and controlling Ron. She used Ron and did not pay attention to him. Ron needed her and she ignored his silent pleas for help. She knew that Ron was weak after getting out from the hospital. She should have not messed with his medications. Just because her mother was a doctor did not mean that Kim was a fountain of medical knowledge.

Dr. Parks had the bitch where she belonged. When she followed his advice, the German hospital staff would lock her in the loony bin. He had enough documentation to ensure the she would spend a long time where she could no longer hurt Vasilii. He had enough documentation to ensure that Vasilii would not have to fight for custody, but have it given to him on a silver platter. In the worst case, the child would be given to her parents. Anything was better than her.

When Vasilii finds out that Kim simply lost it mentally, he would stop blaming himself. He would accept that Kim was ill and she was in a place that could help her. Vasilii will be stuck raising his child. That would ensure that Vasilii did not jump off a bridge or use his skill for contact-range target practice with a pistol, rifle, or worse, shotgun. After a while, he would accept that Kim would never return to sanity and move on to find love elsewhere.

_Best part, the Kim bitch would be exactly where she belongs.

* * *

_

Lieutenant Boiarskii reported to the company commander. 

"Vasilii, grab a seat. I have to ask you a no-shitter. Did you or did you not threaten to torture a prisoner?"

Vasilii stood at attention. "At no time did I ever explicitly threaten to remove any part of a prisoner's anatomy with a pair of pruning shears. Other than that, I exert my privilege under the 32nd article of the uniform code of military justice until I have a chance to review the particulars of any charges made against me."

"Sit down, my preliminary investigation is over, and I find that there are no merits to pressing charges, as the charges are baseless. Lieutenant, sit down. Your prisoner told us about a company. However, tonight I need second platoon to verify that he did not omit other units."

"Sir, what about the ..."

"The prisoner was gibbering about a scarred up lieutenant who was the modern day disciple of the Marquis de Sade. J2 told me to investigate. I just have to have a medic wipe your K-bar down for blood evidence. Private Fuller told me you accidentally cut yourself in the scuffle to capture the prisoner. Good work, Boairskii."

"Thank PFC Fuller, Corporal Miller, Sergeant Obyo, and Doc Holloway. They put together the plan to save Private Norris. Miller and Obyo are Cincinnati SWAT, Fuller just happened to be up near me because he took French in high school, and Holloway is just a kick ass corpsman, read a squid with balls. Hauling in a prisoner to interrogate was a bonus of fate, however, it took some brass ones to go into a known ambush sight, unable to use fragmentation grenade, and rescue a down comrade. I am going to put them in for a silver star for rescuing a fallen comrade under fire and having enough pose to take advantage of a fluid tactical situation to capture a prisoner."

"What about you?"

"I have enough medal and scars to last a lifetime sir. I just want to see my marines taken care of and returned home to their families unharmed."

Ron knew that if the CO could read his mind, Ron would have been slapped in the nearest loony bin and the staff will throw away the key. He knew that the part of him called Vasilii would have gone all the way and actually torture the prisoner if the demonstration of insanity failed. He talked to the marines who witnessed the incident and convinced them that it was an act.

However, Ron knew that it was not an act.

Vasilii was molded by every negative thing that Ron swallowed without complaint. Ron and Vasilii would fight over whose world view will determine the future of the blond, dark-eyed body they co-inhabited. They both accepted that they needed each other, but both accepted that they will try to dominate the other.

The after action report was simply as follows: One marine WIA – sent to the battalion aid station and would be medivaced to Landstuhl for further treatment; four dozen rounds, two fragmentation grenades, two distraction devices expended; eight enemy KIA, one enemy WIA and taken prisoner. Intelligence stating that there is a company of infantry in the northeast quarter of Verdun hidden among refugees.

Tonight, second and third platoons will be assaulting the suspected enemy HQ. The marines would move into the adjacent buildings and proved cover while third platoon would be paying the French a visit. The UAV drone provided overhead photos, but overhead photos is not an interior layout of the building. There were two walk-in metal doors, ten metal fire doors, and six roll up doors in the rear loading bays. The warehouse dimensions were 50 meters by 75 meters and the walls were twenty centimeter thick concrete with rebar and a false brick façade.

What concerned Vasilii so much was the fact that no one would stay in such a place without another way out. Probably underground, otherwise it would be too easy to seal off and pound with an artillery fire mission.

There simply weren't enough warm bodies to launch an assault. However, there never were.

Tonight, Ron would use the tricks that Yori and Master Sensei showed him. The bad guys laid a trap. All traps had a weakness. Their weakness was that any trap remained open until sprung. He planed to slip in and out without springing open the trap.

* * *

It was 2230 and thankfully tonight was a new moon. 

Ron had carefully applied his camouflage face paint careful to dull the high spots and cover all exposed skin. Since stealth was the order of the day, he relinquish everything but his BDU's, his boots, a combat knife, an integrally suppressed Colt SMG-9SD 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun, four spare magazines, night vision goggles, field glasses, and a small two way radio with an improvised LASH head set that picked up the vibrations from his throat. With it, his platoon would be able to hear him clearly even if his sub-vocalized his transmission. His companion tonight was a former hunting guide from Wyoming armed with the identical gear, and a digital video camera with night vision capability and transmission gear.

Slowly the pair examined the buildings around the warehouse. The only form of life belonged to insects and furry four legged mammals that went squeek and enjoyed cheese. As the pair cleared a building, a fire team from the second platoon would quietly occupy it, preparing it into a fortified bunker for tomorrows scheduled assault.

By 0300, all the buildings with a line of sight on the warehouse was cleared. Things were too quiet.

Ron examined the building through the binoculars. There were a limited number of entrances and exits that could be covered with a booby trap or IED. Having been trained as a combat engineer, Ron could only imagine how he would defend it. However with refuges, bombing the structure was a no-no.

The doors would definitely be booby trapped. Blasting in a hole in the wall was the same as committing to an all out assault. Ron looked for a drain pipe or something to use to climb up the building. However, someone cut the pipe.

The only way in without knocking on the door was from below or above. Above was not an option. Everyone knew that Americans were known for fast roping out of choppers. That left the sewers.

Ron prayed that the bad guys were just about as dumb about sewers as the villains he and KP faces off against during his teen years. Then he cursed himself. KP was right to ditch him. He was some sick freak who raped her and the only reason she ever came back was because of the baby. After boot camp and on his twenty-four hour leave, he proved that he was a lecherous snake.

_Sure, I'm hurting... oh, poor me for effing an ex-playmate Creole and six college girls in a week. And then riding that Heidi Schultz bareback eight times on that one day leave before we went into France. I wouldn't be surprised if they come after me for child support – Christ knows that I did not even bother with a condom. I know that I will feel bad, yet I still do it ...them._

_Get your perverted mind off your sexual conquests. Yori ... Christ Ron you are really effing sick-wrong in the noodle. Just after you break up with Kim, you fantasized about her so much your dick itches in the morning like you just had sex._

_Sick-wrong your effing bastard. Get your mind back into the game. Maybe when all is said and done, you can salvage something. Your child still needs a father figure, or at least an example of what type of boyfriend to avoid._

The feeling of a metal trip wire brought Ron Stoppable back to the here and now. Ron followed the trip wire to a US made claymore mine. Half a step and his daughter's father would become ground meat fit for Homo sapiens sausages.

However was here expected that he would think about coming from below. Ron motioned for Lance Corporal White to remain while he scouted ahead.


	47. Crawling in Filth

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Crawling in Filth**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**"Sick and Wrong."

The boy who once boasted about having nothing but "Air beneath the hair", was stuck with one of those moral dilemmas that a long forgotten Middleton High School philosophy professors described.

Back in Middleton High, Ron, having the attention span of a gnat, promptly fell asleep in class, slept through the lecture and thus the answer, earned an hour of detention with Mr. Barkin, which he bribed his way out of with some cake he cooked up in home economics. However, he never learned the answer to the moral dilemma question.

Today, he would kill for the answer.

Option One – Call in an air-strike. A couple five hundred pound iron bombs would level the place. Pluses: No dead marines; Lots of dead enemy; and it would take only five to fifteen minutes depending on air support. Negatives: Lots of dead innocent civilians; Loss of possible intelligence; and a chance that the air-scout would miss the target and bomb the marines instead.

Option Two – Assault the warehouse. Pluses – Less dead innocent civilians (hopefully); Possible intelligence; and positively no chance of being mistaken for the enemy by the fly boys zooming in at over 400 knots and at 20,000 feet. Negatives: Potentially lots of dead marines; the assault could take hours; and the enemy could slip away to fight again.

Kim would have figured out a way to get all the bad guys to surrender or knock them all out. However, Ron was not Kim.

For the past nine months, Fate and the United States Marine Corps molded Ron Stoppable into a killer. Not the psychotic kind (Hopefully), but Ron got to the point where he accepted killing as a way of dealing with the bad guys.

The old Ron would gibber incessantly about eewh, an icky job. However, the young blond-hair, freckle-face marine officer only took in a deep breath. A decision had to be made and he would have to do it.

The marines of 2nd platoon, alpha company would take the warehouse.

There was no debate, no vote. The military might fight for democracy, but the military was not a democracy. Ron's was the only vote that mattered. But if he made the wrong decisions other would pay with their lives. Here everyone voted with bullets and explosives.

Literally, Ron crawled through the shit that flow through the sewer. He was already missing the villain lairs of his youth. They at least were clean. Here he was covered in shit.

Up ahead, Ron could hear someone walking towards him. Slowly he shouldered his Colt SMG with the Gemtech Talon SD integral sound suppressor. He took a couple deep breaths praying that the walker would turn around. His sensed went into overdrive. He could not only smell the sewage, but could almost bite down upon the scent.

The steps were getting closer. Ron tightened the telescoping butt stock of his weapon against the pocket of his shoulder. His right thumb flipped the lever from safe to semiautomatic fire. He place the post of his sight on the head of the approaching figure.

Ten more steps and Ron wouldn't have to shoot. Ten more steps and all he had to do was whack the guy with the muzzle of his weapon. However to do so would compromise his presence to the enemy gathered in the warehouse above.

_Think small, Ron. Be a little dung beetle. Be a little dung beetle happy to roll in this shit. Be calm and they will look past you. Be calm and they won't see you. Be calm and enjoy this fresh pile of shit. Enjoy this shit, Ron because it's purer than your soul._

Ron gave into temptation and let the building pressure in his bladder out. Pissing on himself did not matter, he was already covered in filth. The scent of his fresh urine mingled with the urine and shit slurry floating down the sewer.

The figure was four feet away. Ron's weapon was now trained on the figure's pelvis. He heard more than saw the figure open his fly and let loose a fresh stream of urine that landed inches away from Ron's prone figure. It took all of Ron's self-control to not shoot the guy's lizard off.

Ron prayed that the asshole was not the type to shake his snake during the communion with the toilet goddess. However, God always had a habit of ignoring Ron's prayers. Ron heard of golden showers, but he never quiet figured out why some people enjoyed them. Now he could caulk up the experience of receiving one to his resume. He only hoped that he had a chance to piss on this idiot's corpse once the battle was over.

Thankfully, no one else saw the event.

After a couple more shakes, the jerk turned around and started walking back. Probably he would not think to wash his hands or zip his fly.

Slowly, the pissed-on marine officer crawled forward covering more of his body in shit. He wanted to fantasize about soap and limitless hot water, but he had to keep an eye out for booby-traps.

Today, there were infrared beams, waterproof sensor mats, seismic devices, and a host of ways to trigger an explosive welcome. However, these guys went low tech. GI tripwire was GI tripwire around the world. Soviet, Chinese, American, or French it was a fine steel wire painted olive drab.

Despite signing the Ottawa Convention, France still had its share of landmines. All nations did. It was the yin and yang of war. If you want to defeat something, you must know how to use it.

In front of him was a French MAPED F1. The MAPED F1 was an analogue to the Vietnam era M18A1 claymore mine, that every US marine and solder learned to use in boot camp. Upon detonation, the mine would launch ball bearings or shrapnel in a sixty degree cone of death. Taking advantage of the Misznay-Schardin Effect, the M18A1 claymore mine and its cousins such as the MAPED F1 did very nasty things to infantry.

Slowly he traced the wire. Trained as a combat engineer, Ron knew that professionals would always use multiple devices to defeat enemy combat engineers. Whoever set up the mine was definitely not a professional. Ron breathed a sigh of relief when he noted there were no anti-tamper devices on the MAPED mine. Looking around confirmed the fact. There was no second device to ready to kill anyone who got too cocky after the first mine.

Reaching into the pockets of his BDU, Ron removed one of the spare grenade pins and inserted it into the detonator, before unscrewing it from the main body of the mine. He retrieved the shit encrusted mine for later use. He planed to return the party gift back to the owners.

* * *

Kim Possible broke down when they finally allowed her to see her daughter. There was not doubt about who the father was. Melody Anne (Anastasia) Possible had hazel eyes, her father's blond hair, and the beginning of the three freckles the doted each one of her father's cheeks.

The latest Possible was too busy sucking on the bottle to note the fact that her mother was crying uncontrollably.

Even if they let her out, Kim would be confronted by the image of the young man she inadvertently killed. Kim knew that she did not deserve to have the honor of being this child's mother, but she was the only parent left. She remembered hating Ron. She remembered planning to get an abortion and terminate Ron's child.

Looking down at her daughter, Kim wondered what kind of monster she became. She had a beautiful little girl who looked at her and let the ugly, red headed bitch hold her and feed her. How was she going to react when Kim had to tell her that her daddy died because Kim lost her sanity?

Kim started rocking her baby and cooing like all new mothers instinctively does. Slowly the little girl, having been feed and burped, closed her hazel eyes. Melody's blond hair was a mess just like Ron's use to be.

Kim wondered what would happen to her child when they hauled her away. Kim was already going stir crazy from being confined to her room. Kim curled up in bed with her daughter wondering when she would finally go over the edge and try to end her life.

_Frau Doktor_ Mueller examined the chart of Kim Possible. Kim exhibited troubling signs far beyond the post partum depress that sometimes plague new mothers. She was exhibiting paranoid behaviors, having alternating periods of depression and hyperactivity, and would often be seen crying. Kim would not open up to anyone,

Mueller respected Dr. Parks of the United States Army. He filled in some of the blanks. However the blanks he did fill in did not paint a pretty picture. Kim's lover and father was a marine officer fighting in France. Rather than just accepting the fact, Kim was living in a fantasy world where Ron was dead. Medication was dangerous, because of Kim's insistence on breast feeding her daughter; Mueller could not simply medicate the problem, but have to seek the underlying source of Kim's neurosis.

Mueller knew that she was up against a time limit. Should this behavior go on too long, Kim would permanently slip into schizophrenia. At that point, Kim would have to be forcibly separated from her child. Mothers with schizophrenia have been known to perform mercy killings or exhibit other dangerous behaviors that could seriously injure their children.

Kim could not stand to be separated from her child. Unless Kim snapped out of her self-destructive path, Dr. Mueller might have to have social services remove Kim's daughter.

* * *

Ron examined the door that lead up into the basement of the warehouse. It was an old fire door, probably rated at 60 or ninety minutes. It was constructed of heavy steel with some serious hardware. There was no way that that the assault team could batter down the door without waking up the dead and losing the element of suprise. With the ninty degree bend in the coridoor, using an anti-tank rocket or grenades to knock down the doorwas not an option. The hinges and locking hardware was tough enough to require explosives. Figuring that the door had a standard thickness of 1&3/4 inches, Ron calculated the amount of detcord needed to free the door from its mounting hardware. However, explosive breeching was not certain. It was based upon assumptions, assumptions that could kill the unwary.

Ron whoever had a different idea. Let them open the door for the marines.


	48. Shit on the Soul

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Shit on the Soul**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Ron lit up another cigarette.

Looking at the Surgeon General's warning, Ron scoffed. At the rate he was getting hurt, living long enough to enjoy lung cancer or congestive heart failure was less probable than the President of the United States throwing a free crack party in the White House for all the crack cocaine junkies in Washington D.C.

He remembered the first time he smoked a cigarette. It was one of Mrs. Stoppable's menthol brands. He remembered being caught, whipped by Mr. Stoppable with an extension cord, and forced to smoke a big old stogie.

He remembered puking his guts out.

He took in another drag.

_What good is a future if you have no one to share it with?_

He remembered his old buddy Felix. Paralyzed from the waist down, Felix managed to find love with Tara of all people. Felix was now an associate editor/writer for _Zone of Gamers_ and would invite Ron to play the first person shooters. Now Ron was in the ultimate first person shooter, save for the fact that there are no cheat codes for this game.

Carefully, Ron placed the French claymore mine that he recovered from the sewers so that it covered the door. He rigged another claymore past the door shooting back towards his position. Both devices were tied to the same radio detonator and carefully camouflaged so the enemy would not know they were in a kill zone until they arrived at the gates of hell.

Vasilii never had a goofy smile. That was Ron's defensive mechanism. Act dull and no one would expect much. Vasilii was anything but dull. His smiles were twisted and would just stop short of the eyes.

Mr. Murphy once stated that whatever can go wrong will go wrong at the most inopportune time. Mr. O'Toole made the observation that Murphy was a bloody optimist. It was this force of chaos the both Ron and Vasilii subconsciously exploited.

The Ron Factor was simple. Jinx your opposition. Make them underestimate you and Murphy's Law would always bite your foes in the ass.

Today, he would ensure that the French would underestimate the marines.

* * *

Andre Ambler was monitoring enemy radio traffic.

The Americans were in Verdun. Unlike World War I, the France would not hold the enemy here. This was merely the first speed bump on a line of speed bumps designed to tax American logistics. All Verdun was is a jab to stun the opponent and set him up for the knock-out.

Contrary to the propaganda, Andre knew that the Americans were no pushovers. They were simply better trained and better supplied than the legionnaire tasked with bloodying the American here.

The warehouse was packed with homemade fuel air explosive gel. When let off, there was enough explosive to generate a mushroom could and destroy the city. It would look like someone dropped an atomic bomb. It was powerful enough to destroy the logistics base that the American would certainly set up in Verdun.

The mission was simple. Prepare the mushroom cloud, get out of town, let the Americans occupy the town and set up a logistics base, and then serve one mushroom cloud.

Slowing Andre turned the dial sampling the frequencies. Mostly all he heard was static. However there was always signal leakage and using the RDF, Andre could pin down the location of the Americans.

"Tramp Actual to all Tramps. Tramp Actual to all Tramps. There's sign of enemy activity in sewer underneath Garibaldi Avenue near the Hotel Les Colombes. Request two fire teams to start sealing off sewers."

Andre knew that it was time to flee. The sewers underneath Garibaldi was the primary escape route. If they did not move quickly, the enemy would seal off all the exits.

He quickly reported the intelligence to his company commander. Within two minutes, everyone was grabbing their weapons and gear. Andre activated the 96-hour fuse on the detonators. Now everyone had 88 to 104 hours to get out of town.

The eighty six legionnaires filed out the subbasement door and headed down the secondary escape route.

Two loud explosions and a mist of blood, told Andre that he was in the middle of a kill zone. Andre was knocked downed and he tried to rise. Failing that, he switched off the safety on his FAMAS and started firing. Within two seconds, the twenty five-round magazine was empty. He felt light-headed and could hardly concentrate on the task of reloading his weapon.

He felt something slam into him and a burning within his flesh. He knew that he was hit. He knew that he was a fish in a bucket trying to evade being tonight fillet.

The last thing he saw was the muzzle flashes from the American ambush.

* * *

Slaughter was an understatement.

Part of Ron wanted to say Booyah! However Booyah and Badical were terms to describe the good things in life. Converting eighty-six men into sausage was not suppose to be a good thing.

Yet Ron felt like he slain the dragoon, rescue the damsel in distress, won an all expense paid trip to Disneyworld, and was vote Prom King of Middleton High.

Ron took a deep breath taking in the acidic coppery taste of spilt blood into his lungs. He lit another cigarette and waited for the NCO's to give him an idea of the friendly body count. Today was a victory. However it came at a great price, five marines were wounded, one of them had no hope.

Ron walked up to the dying marine. Jose Raphael was a young father who joined up to support a family and get college money. Now he was dying. Ron squatted and handed the dying marine his cigarette. He wanted to tell Jose that there was a heaven, but how can one believe in heaven when all Ron ever seen was hell. Jose was gasping for his final breath like a fish gasps out of the water. Ron witnessed the death throes of the young marine.

Victory had a smell. Burnt cordite, the acid coppery smell of blood, the ammonia scent of urine, and shit – They all told a story that would never grace any history book. Ron took in a deep breath of Victory and hated it.

He looked at the bodies of the enemy. The only difference between victory and defeat was that in victory your sacrifices meant something. The enemy all lost their lives for nothing.

It was time for the marines to start house cleaning. Bodies had to be thorough checked for intelligence. Ron had to ensure that the enemy left no booby-traps. Ron called over his platoon and everyone had to dig into the pile of blood, guts, flesh, and shit. Victory meant that the winner would have to clean the shit off their hands before they eat tonight. Too bad you never got it out of your soul.


	49. Devil Dog's Kennel Run I

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**The Devil Dogs' Kennel Run, pt 1**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**Using his field glasses, Lieutenant Vasilii Boiarskii, USMC examined the approaches to the town of Château Thierry. Battalion wanted Alpha Company to conduct a sweep of the community.

Lots of the history of the United States Marine Corps was tied up with Chateau Thierry and nearby Belleau Wood. Ninety two years and 14 days ago, Captain Lloyd Williams, USMC, when advised to retreat, replied, "Retreat, Hell! We just got here." Captain Williams did not live to see the end of the battle of Belleau Wood. Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly gave the wood the quote, "Come on ya sons-of-bitches, ya want to live forever?" Six hundred fifteen enlisted marines and nineteen officers fertilized this battlefield with their blood. Here was where the German high command dubbed the United States Marines _die Teufelshunde_, or Devil Dogs.

Today, another generation of Marines was called upon to fight in what would soon be dubbed by the media and military historians as the Devil Dog's Kennel Runs.

Next to Lieutenant Boiarskii was Staff Sergeant Johnny Reyes, his platoon sergeant and confidant. Reyes was an embassy marine prior to being deployed with the 45th Regimental Combat Team (Joint). Reyes was the only one in the platoon who knew that Boiarskii was only a Marine for the past seven months and that Boiarskii had some severe confidence problems. He was also the only one who knew that Boiarskii was addicted to painkillers.

"Sir, coast is clear."

"Thanks, Johnny."

Boiarskii popped a pill and then took a swig of water from his canteen. He did not look at Reyes afraid to see the contempt of Staff Sergeant Reyes.

Reyes did not hold his lieutenant in contempt. If anything, Boiarskii was too willing to risk his neck. Reyes had been on the wrong side of an Iraqi ambush in Hussein's hometown of Tikrit and had to spend a couple months weaning himself off of the pain killers after he recovered.

However, the men could and would never know Boiarskii's weakness. Boiarskii was the lieutenant. For the unit to be effective the men had to believe that he was the avatar sent to lead this band of marines on the Marine Corps path to victory. As far at the men would know the only reason that Lieutenant Boiarskii did not walk on water was that he did not want to get his boots wet.

Reyes considered Boiarskii a friend, but the rules of command prohibited them from acting buddy-buddy in front of the marines. Boiarskii was dedicated to the welfare of his marines and would do anything he could to keep them alive yet accomplish the mission.

"Sir," Lance Corporal Derrick Meador, the unit's signalman yelled, "Captain is having an officer call in fifteen at the CP."

"Tell him that I will on the way, Corporal. Reyes, have the LAV gunners use their thermal optics and scan the windows. Also, have most of the marines stand down and let them eat and rest. I have a feeling that someone up high is calling for an assault soon."

"Aye, aye sir."

Boiarskii hosted his rifle and started walking to Alpha Company Headquarters. In peacetime, officer calls usually meant officers only, but in wartime, it meant all the platoon leaders and some of the company's more senior NCOs'. Unlike in peacetime, the CO did not call them for kicks or socializing – Everyone was far too busy for that kind off stuff. Whatever it was, odds were 10 to 1 in favor of some really bad news and whenever there was bad news it usually was dumped upon Boiarskii's platoon.

Ron Stoppable wondered what happened. One moment, the captain was yapping about battalion's plan to sweep the town. The next Ron found himself lying on the ground in the middle of dead bodies and blood. He knew that his mind was missing some pretty major events, but he was too stunned to figure out how or what just happened.

Everyone else nearby was dead or dying. He staggered up as the medics came and started doing their thing. The Captain and Lieutenant Grade were dead. The company sergeant would, if lucky, be sent home missing his limbs, and the company radiotelephone operator was literally vaporized. They will have to officially identify his remains via the dog tags inserted into the soles of his boots.

Someone popped some mortar rounds at the worst possible time. Bud luck happened, but in war there were no coincidences, just opportunities taken or let go - Somewhere nearby there was someone acting as a forward observer calling in the location of the company command post.

Then it clicked in. Ron was now the commanding officer of Alpha Company and had to deal with the tactical situation now. He looked around and spotted a US army corporal who looked stunned. Thankfully the corporal was a signalman and had a radio set on the company frequency. Ron grabbed the stunned signalman and started walking deeper into the woods to avoid any additional barrages.

"Alpha company, this is Tramp actual. CP has been hit and hit hard. I am assuming command at this time. Platoon NCOs' are hereby brevetted to butter-bars (second lieutenant) and given authority to brevet anyone necessary to fill in the holes, pending an order to the contrary. Reyes is company XO and he gets a silver bar (first lieutenant). Any order from him is one from me. I want everyone to take Chateau Thierry east of Avenue de Soissons and north of Rue Charles Martel. Wily Coyote will provide direct fire support. Thumper will follow everyone in and set up to provide fire when its time for the big push. Road Runner will follow along ASAP. Tramp is to detach third squad, and send them over to meet me. Lieutenant Reyes, I am fifty meters, black two from the CP. It's time to hunt ourselves a forward observer."

"Wily Coyote, ready to get it on, sir!"

"Tramp, aye, aye, captain!"

"Lady, we'll enjoy a little smash and blast, sir!"

"Thumper, we deliver death on time or the next round is free."

Ron handed the handset to the Corporal.

"Get battalion on the net."

"Yes, sir."

The young corporal dialed a knob and handed back the handset.

"Tramp Actual to Royal Honey. Alpha Company CP hit by mortars. Two officers, One EM - KIA, Three EM's – WIA – We lost one humvee. Tramp Actual assuming command. Have brevetted all platoon sergeants to second lieutenant and Staff Sergeant Reyes to first lieutenant and XO. I am allowing them to brevet whomever necessary to fill in all the holes. Alpha company is assaulting Chateau Thierry. Am taking northeast section bordered by Rue Charles Martel and Soissons Avenue. Warning – Enemy FO in area. Will call when dealt with otherwise do not stop on the outskirts of town. Am going hunting, out."

Ron tossed back the handset.

"From now on this is the only radio in Alpha Company that transmits on the battalion net. It selectively receives radio traffic from battalion only when I say it receives. Is that clear, corporal."

"Yes sir."

Ron could hear his battalion commander demanding more information.

"Wait here for the squad. I will be with you in a second."

Ron walked to the other side of a convenient tree and heaved his guts out.

"Goddamn Jarhead!"

To say Lieutenant Colonel Mark Kramer was upset was an understatement.

He and his staff had painstakingly crafted a plan to take the town and now Second Lieutenant Boiarskii, USMC, was messing up his big play.

As a captain and a major Kramer was given similar performance reviews. He was marked as an excellent staff type, but not a natural combat commander. His evaluators told him and the world that his inability to risk everything on a calculated throw of the dice was unacceptable. With those reviews, he was shunted from the fast track to general to being relegated to the ranks of staff pukes. He knew that the powers that be would not give him another command. He watched as a great number of his West Point classmates made it to colonel and two even made it to brigadier general already.

The war with France was a godsend for the career minded officer.

Lieutenant Colonel Kramer got a battalion that he would have never received in peacetime. If he did well the evaluations would be overshadow by his combat record. He would have show that he matured into an excellent combat commander. In doing so, he would be given a regiment and have stars in his future, as long as he did not drop the ball again. He vowed to do whatever he had to do to never be viewed as just another staff puke. However, it had to be him associated with the victory. Not some suicidal, crazy jarhead and his platoon of gung ho Marines.

However, he knew that regiment would want some action and answers. Colonel Diego was one of those officers who everyone knew would be wearing four stars someday. Diego was action oriented and hated staff pukes. He tolerated Major Kramer,

If Lieutenant Colonel Kramer delivered, he figured that he could ride Diego's coat tails to at least one star. Brigadier General Kramer, Retired looked a lot better on a resume than Lieutenant Colonel Kramer, Retired when it came to returning back to the civilian world looking for employment.

Kramer had to do something and since he could not slap down the lieutenant, he decided to share in the glory. The entire battalion was going to Chateau Thierry with the soon to be Brigadier General Kramer at its helm.

Now he needed a quote for the history books. He turned to his stunned staff and told them, "Boots and saddles, gentlemen. It's time for us to clean up this French kennel run," thus forever giving historians the idea of calling this area the kennel runs.

"Call Captain Boairskii and tell him to go ahead on the attack and that he gets his railroad tracks. I want the Bravo and Charily Companies to take the northwest side of town with half our tank detachment. Take everything north and west of ..."

Lieutenant Colonel Kramer looked at the map and pointed to a long round that went east to west and then curved south.

"...Nourveau Lycēe. Tell Echo Company and the other half of our tank detachment that they are to flank around to the south side of town. Call regiment and tell them that we have entered Château Thierry and to request that arty be ready for fire missions. Echo Company and the tankers are to stand off and prevent anyone from making a run for the French Rivera."

At the top of his head, Major Kramer came up with something militaristic, something degrading to the enemy, yet politically correct. _Kennel runs_ - He was going grab those damn stars and his place in the history books.

Colonel (Brigadier General Designate) Diego, commanding officer of the 45th Regimental Combat Team was stunned. Kramer actually made a decision, instead of equivocating as he did before the operation.

_Damn, he even beat me to the great quote, _Kennel runs._ Now I got to think of something when we hit Paris. I just hope that this new Kramer is not just a fluke._

With a company decapitated, Kramer brevetted the only surviving officer to captain and had the officer already attacking the enemy stronghold. With a command into the intercom microphone, he had his UH-60L Blackhawk turn towards Chateau Thierry. The regiment turned from the main highway to Paris and headed south toward the Château Thierry.

Vasilii Boiarskii knew that the observer was not in town. If he was, he would not be able to see where company HQ was. It was up to Vasilii, nine marines, and one US Army corporal signalman to locate the threat. Scanning the wood line with his binoculars, he looked for a sign of human presence. He looked for a straight line.

Whoever he was, the guy knew how to camouflage himself.

Vasilii shouldered his old M21 rifle. Made in the late 1950's it was the last wood and metal rifle made in the old Springfield Armory. He tightened the sling and held it so the scope was visible. The bad guy would see what any fighting man feared the most. He just hoped that his marines found the guy first before the guy took him out.

* * *

_Première classe_ Felicien Ghislain examined the area with his spotting scope. _Sergent chef_ Gilles Jean-Baptiste called in an effective mortar attack ten minutes ago which forced the Americans to quickly scatter. The vaunted Foreign Legion failed to destroy the logistics of the Americans. Now it was up to units of the regular French army to bloody the American noses.

Felicien resisted the urge to cheer. The American fled, but they fled towards town where the mortar teams were located. Soon the mortar team would have to displace.

Gilles called in the information to the battalion commander. Today would be brutal house to house fighting.

Felicien turned his spotting glasses towards town.

A man with a scoped rifle was making his way toward the woods where the two French solders were waiting.

"Sergeant, the Americans, they sent a sniper after us. No shit ... look."

Gilles slide over to the spotting glasses.

"Damn, damn, damn, and damn. American snipers are damn good. I saw on in Afghanistan hit a man at over twelve hundred yards. Give me a range and azimuth. We got to call in a fire mission on him before he gets us in his sights."

The pair quickly erected the antenna.

Felicien focused his scope on the American. He shouldered his rifle and was aiming it at him.

Felicien dropped into the spider hole. He got our locations. Tell those bastards to drop a ..."

Suddenly a voice backed up by the sight of a muzzle in their faces stopped all thoughts of escape. A squat, thick waist marine looked upon the two French men.

"You're good. Until Junior over here bumped your spotting scope, we were on top of you and did not even see you. You are lucky that we got to you. If we did not, that sniper over there wants to set a new world record. You are out of the war. _Haut_. _Mains haut_. Raise your hands."

Felicien and Gilles raised their hands. Their war was over.

* * *

Boom. Crash.

The tanks of 1st platoon blasted a hole in the wall and provided cover fire with their Browning M2HB .50-cal machineguns as the marines of 2nd platoon and the soldiers of 3rd platoon cleared the structure. The 60-mm mortar teams of 4th platoon were laying smokescreens and occasionally lobbing high explosive shells whenever they had a for sure target.

Just blasting always all structures would only produce rumble. If there was anything more difficult than prying the enemy out of house was prying them out of ruble.

For the past ten hours, _Rattenkrieg_ was the order of the day. No one walked down the streets. It was blast your way inside of one building. Blast into the adjoining buildings making man-sized rat holes everywhere you go. Clear the building. Repeat building to building until you have cleared a city block. Then have the tanks blast a hole in the next block, dash into the holes, and repeat.

Ron wanted to be up front with his men, but someone had to coordinate the movements between his platoons and between Alpha Company and the rest of the battalion. He was stuck at the company HQ on the corner of _Grande_ _Rue_ and _Lecart_, just a block south of the church. The Air Force was doing precision strikes, but even for the best pilot in the world, bombs were not Mrs. Dr. P's surgical scalpels.

In twenty four hours, the battalion cleared the entire town save for the island. The rest of the regiment was ordered to continue on the route to Paris, but Alpha Company with some reinforcements from Charley and Echo Companies were tasked with clearing out the island. Although junior by rank, he was de facto the commander by virtue of having command of the majority of the task force.

Enemies were on an island on the _Mame_ river. The bridges that connect Rue Carnot with the northern and southern branch of the _Mame_ were blown by enemy combat engineers. The sewers were deliberately flooded so that Alpha Company could not come in from below. The enemy was doing everything to prevent the engineers from building a bridge.

It was now 2234 and there were tracer fire from both sides of the river. One side would fire. The over side would fire. Then the tanks would fire. Then their artillery would fire. Then Regiment would have the multiple rocket launchers play counter-fire with the enemy artillery. Then things would die for a short time and the whole vicious circle would start again.

The only people sleeping in town were the dead.

* * *

Yori Yamanouchi screamed in pain as she pushed the first of her twin daughters into the world.

She had let Ron go out into the world and she had wept when he died. She knew that Kim Possible was also carrying his child. Just because you were a ninja and lived in the mountains did not mean that you did not read the tabloids.

Alone save for the midwife helping her with the delivery, she had suffered. Knowing tradition, there were no ninjas in earshot of the birthing cabins. Knowing her father, he was breaking all the traditions and waiting nearby. If Ron was alive and knew, he too would be nearby.

Most mothers cursed out the father during the delivery. However, Yori did not. She did not want to drive always his spirit from her.

Yori had chosen this path when she got Ron drunk and slept with him all those nights during those two weeks of training. She had affirmed her choice when she ignored everyone but her father's pleas to have an abortion. She accepted her choice, knowing that she would never have a husband to be by her side.

Ron's spirit would not go on in the afterlife forgotten and forced to wander aimlessly. His spirit had three anchors to the future. With a future there was a chance that his spirit would know peace. He would know that his life meant something more than pain and heartbreak.

Yori let out a scream as she pushed out her eldest daughter out of her womb and into the world. Yori knew that she would have to push out another daughter.

The birth was difficult. Unlike the red hair _gaijin_, Yori did not have the wide hips for child bearing. Being a small petite girl, mean that giving birth would be difficult.

Yori had to live. She had to teach her daughters that their father was more than some guy would just lucky, scored, and left their mother behind. She had to teach her children that blinding doing what everyone expected was not living.

Yori lived more in three weeks than she did in the previous twenty years. She did not want her girls to live a life that they never really lived. Yes, there was duty, but there was compassion and love.

Yori heard the holler of her eldest child and prepare to bring forthher youngest child into the world.


	50. Devil Dog's Kennel Run II

**Ron's Worst Nightmares**

**Devil Dog's Run, pt. 2**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Château Thierry, France, 0300 

The marines of 2nd platoon, Alpha Company and the soldiers of 3rd platoon, Alpha Company were swimming across the river Mame towards the island.

Captain Vasilii Boiarskii was taking a terrible risk and Ron Stoppable was thankful that the river would wash away the shit and piss stench of fear that never made it into any of the history books or memoirs.

_George Washington may have never told a lie, but he neglected to mention anything about involuntary bowel movements that occur when he came under fire. Note to self, if you live long enough to ever write your autobiography- do the same thing, it was bad enough that you keep losing your pants on those missions with Kim._

Fear and nausea were constant companions. The thoughts ran through Ron Stoppable's mind at a million miles per second. However, he could not freak out. The Boiarskii myth was created and now Ron Stoppable had to live up to the myth or his men will die. He had to have a bigger set of balls than the Duke, make Chesty Puller looked like Little Lord Fauntleroy, and make the other potential alpha males look like girly men. Fate ensured that the most messed up psyche got stuck being the bedrock of support for the company.

Boiarskii had two goals: (1) Get across the river without anyone drowning; and (2) Sneak as close as he could to the enemy CP and _neutralize_ the opposition. To do so, he had to commander any available flotation device so that the weapons and gear did not sink to the bottom of the river. Even then, everyone had to travel with the bare minimum of gear. No one wore helmets or a bullet resistant vest on this swim.

Boiarskii made it to the wall on the other side of the bank and began to tie off the rope. In any operation there was always an AV, or area of vulnerability. It was a point that if the enemy found you there, things would go far beyond FUBAR. Right now was the AV point. Until the unit could secure a block it was stuck in an AV point.

Tonight luck was not on Boiarskii's side.

Two French sentries were providing over watch for the stretch of the river that Alpha Company now was swimming. A sniper could hit them from the bank but to do so would cause the enemy to know where the Americans were and turn them into tomorrow's meal for the fishes.

If it was not for the debris floating in the river, the Americans would already be fish food.

Ron slowly made his way up current to the enemy's right. He gambled that they would scan an area the same way they were taught to read as little kids, left to right, top to bottom. Ron planned on coming from their right and at the bottom.

Slowly Ron slow crawled up the river wall, through the debris, and to the back of the other house. The pair of sentries were whispering. However about what, Ron would never know for he was focused on sneaking off without alarming them. One of the stood up and started pointing.

_Fuck, why does this shit always happen to me._

Ron had only one chance and took it. He jumped one of the sentries and stabbed him in the base of the spine. His K Bar combat knife was stuck in the sentry's back. The other sentry raised his weapon.

Ron knew that he was too far to be able to stop the sentry before the sentry could pull the trigger on his FAMAS assault rifle. He instinctively jumped to his side knowing that Kim was not there to save him. He knew that he was going to die. In a way he was looking forward to it.


	51. Staring Down the Muzzle

**Ron's Worst Nightmare **

**Staring Down the Muzzle **

**By Pat Squared **

* * *

Sorry for the long hiatus,

I had to get my muse back to work in my KP AU.

* * *

Chateau Thierry, France 

0328

Ron Stoppable looked down the wrong end of the barrel of a French made FAMAS 5.56mm automatic assault rifle. Vasilii Boiarskii had virtually decapitated the sentry's companion and left Ron to deal with the pissed off sentry. One shot and the plan to sneak up on the island in the middle of the small French town would be in tatters.

Ron Stoppable somehow resisted the urge to run screaming in terror. The sudden wetness in his crouch told him that his body did not resist the urge to wet his pants. If he just did not wade in the river, everyone would know that Ron Stoppable just wet his pant.

The sentry pointed his weapon at Ron's face. The sentry was five paces, three paces too far to lunge and tackle the French solder.

Ron freaked out and run through the sentry knocking the surprised sentry over. Thankfully the other marines heard the tussle and were on the poor Frenchmen before an alarm could be raised.

"Sir, you were lucky. The bastard had his safety on and no round in the chamber."

Ron reluctantly looked on the faces of his men. They didn't know that he was just a twenty year old kid, not even old enough to buy liquor in America and yet he had to made life and death decisions, not just for himself but for a hundred men. They depended on a messed up SOB like him to bring them back home. He had to play along with the act. He was the old man. He took a deep breath.

"We stick with the plan. Tell first and second squads to sweep the bank for sentries. Then they are to hold this place until relived. Try to do so quietly. If all hell breaks loose, this is the fall back point. If we end up back here, it's over, we all just won a free body bag."

Ron pointed to a line of houses.

"Stealth is the word. But once we lost surprise, we are going to do dynamic entries and rush the bastards before they can pin us down. Remember bayonet and bullets. Once we go dynamic, don't stop for anyone. Keep going until we have secured this island. You know the plan."

The squads fanned out as Ron and his signalman set up the CP. Ron took up position with his M21 7.62 semi-automatic battle rifle. He would be the only overwatch his men would have this morning.

"I'll be on the roof. Don't break radio silence until you hear shooting, corporal."

Ron looked down at his US army signalman setting up the satellite radio in the predawn darkness. He did not know the kid's name. He did not yet know the name of most of his men. In twenty four hour, he had sent men to the death and he could not recall their names or faces.

He replayed the event of the past 24 hours. Captain Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii, USMC, had an island to seize and hold until relieved.

He scanned the windows with his NVG compatible binoculars looking for any French sentries.

* * *

Shego's twins were constantly hungry. 

_How on earth did mom manage to fed and change Wego, I don't know? _

It seemed the instant Shego's kids were fed and had their diapers changed, they were crying for more food.

Max Standard, the last of Drakken's henchmen, was out on another scavenging mission, while Shego was hiding in an Persian basement trying to keep her twins happy, or at least fed. Shego managed to rig two canvas slings to keep her children attached to her sore breasts while leaving her hands free. At her side was a loaded Austrian-made GLOCK 17 9mm pistol and two loaded seventeen round magazines. It was just a firecracker in comparison to the fireworks her enemy would use on her if they could find her.

Shego knew that she was losing too much weight too rapidly. Shego knew that she was terribly weak and was in danger of losing her ability to continue producing breast milk for her twins. If that happened, they would die.

Shego slowly gnawed on some liberated crackers that Max found in an old restaurant. They were stale, but the former ruler of France did not care. Looking down on the two lives she brought into this world, she knew how Marie Antoinette felt when she was captured by the French revolutionaries. She was more afraid for her children than herself.

Max believed that there was a way out. He believed that they could somehow escape this mess. That they could sneak off and start a life somewhere. Lay low for the next forty to fifty years.

Shego was nowhere near that optimistic. The best case scenario for Shego was that some authority restored order. Hopefully, whoever they turned out to be, would allow Shego to give her children to a loving home before having the former teen hero turned villain pose for rifle fire. However, she had to act like there was hope. Max deserved that final illusion. He was the last friend she had in this world.

Sometimes, she wished there was a future.

Max loved her and the kids. He willingly went above ground every night, risked his life, and would return with something approximating food. Shego had long since added cats, rats, and dogs to the list of species she had consumed. Soon she would willingly add cockroaches and other insects to the list. She now dreamt of prison food like it was a _Surf and Turf_ at a five star restaurant. She dreamt of a real hot dog with all the fixing like she used to eat when her father took her out to the baseball games. Even a damned naco would be fine meal for the condemned.

Shego silently wept for three lost innocent lives – Max and her two children. As for her own life, she did not wept for she had long earned the privilege of posing for rifle fire.

* * *

It was 0421 when the sounds of gunfire told Ron Stoppable that the fight for Chateau Thierry had transition from the shadows into a living dynamic conflict. 

Ron had twice moved the CP to get a better shooting position.

He mounted the rifle to his shoulder and scanned the streets. He spotted four French troops running. Automatically without thought, Ron lined up the crosshairs and squeezed the match grade trigger.

Bang. Line up. Bang. Line up. Bang. Lineup. Bang.

Four shots and four lives taken. Ron displaced knowing that to stay was to invite a mortar shell on his position.

The radio awoke as Ron's platoon and squad leaders radioed in their reports. One this small island in the middle of this small town, one hundred men had to take and hold this piece of real estate from a two companies of French regulars.

Ron reached into his pocket and grabbed his pack of Turkish cigarettes and Zippo. His hands shook uncontrollably, but he managed to light a cancer stick. It was the last vice of the battle field. It was the last vice a man would taste before his execution. It was a fitting that someone who sent many on a quick ride to hell would slowly sentence himself to a slow, lingering death.

"Sir, third squad wants an air strike on..."

"Tell them no. We have units scattered around. I can't afford an air strike that goes long or short. It's too crowded here. Tell them I'm personally coming over from black ten. Just pin the frogs down until I can blast our way in. Tell the rest of the company to focus on seizing the enemy CP and mortars. Tell battalion to have mortars ready to fire on my command. Lots of HE and Wily Pete's. Don't waste precious fire with smoke. We will be melting tubes later. Have first squad prep a medivac LZ."

The popping sound in the distance told Ron that the French were using mortars. He had to get his men moving. To be pined down meant sucking up another mortar attack.

Ron ran down the street dodging gun fire and occasionally returning it when the opportunity arose.

"Sir, we've found the big cheese. They are in the schoolhouse. I don't know how many, but they got overlapping fields of fires. I have six wounded out in the open."

"Sergeant, I want a mad minute of gunfire on the enemy CP on my command. I will pick off any gunners I see. When the mortars start falling, have two fire teams grab the wounded and fall back while the rest provide covering fire and smoke. The mortars are going to smash down around the enemy CP."

It was time to gamble. It was time to just suck up all the terror and do it.

_I'm sorry that I got you all in this mess. _

"Men, start praying. We either win here or die here. No retreat, no surrender, we got to just get going. Oorah!"

"Oorah."

Ron Stoppable wondered if his men would ever see their loved one again. As for him, there was nothing left to return to but the Corps. He had long since lost any hope of ever seeing Kim Possible or his child.

"Corporal, call Thumper and tell them I want them to rain doom on the enemy CP in three."


	52. Saying Goodbye to an Island Paradise

**Ron's Worst Nightmares **

**Saying Goodbye to an Island Paradise**

**By Pat Squared **

**

* * *

**

Sorry for the long wait,

Had to let my inner demons out

In the Avatar: Last Airbender Universe.

I promise to finish up this one soon!

Thank you for your patience!

* * *

Major Park, US Army Medical Corps, scanned the after action reports looking for any sign of Vasilii Boiarskii. Officially, he was compiling data to project how many combat psychologists should be forward deployed to minimize the severity after-action post traumatic stress disorder. Because most of the men in the ad hoc units came from hospital units (having already been wounded in combat) or were units freshly rotated out of the Middle East/Horn of Africa, they would be most prone to combat fatigue. Once solders would be immediately send home. Today, they and their loved one had to be counseled. In the past, some overwrought solders committed murder-suicides, spousal abuse incidents spiked up, and some have turned to chemicals to relieve their pain. 

Lieutenant, now Captain Vasilii Boiarskii, USMCR, was a textbook case of just how far one could go off the deep end and still be recycled back into the battlefield. Boiarskii had lost his entire squad in the Sudan, hunted the enemy through a riflescope, and nearly lost his life. The only reason he was not given the medal was the fact that he was in a coma and Sudan was a sideshow in the eyes of the civilian world. Boiarskii had lost everything that a man could lose. His pregnant girlfriend left him and nearly killed herself and the child in a car accident. He had lost his self-respect. It seem that the only thing preventing Boiarskii from eating a bullet was the fact that his men depended upon him.

At the rate things were progressing, the war in France would soon be over and the ad hoc units assembled to fight the war would soon be disbanded. Boiarskii would have nothing left to hold him back and Major Park, MD, PhD Psychology, knew that the young man needed something to return to. He needed a reason to live. Major Park knew that Vasilii needed a family, _even if the family including that lying bitch Kim Possible_.

Kim Possible was in a German hospital recovering from the accident and on the verge of going into a psych ward for the rest of her life. Part of Major Park wanted the _red head slut_ to go mad assembling crafts with the rest of her fellow inmates. However, Vasilii then will be stuck raising a daughter by himself. In his condition... Major Park knew that he had to get Kim out of the hospital.

Major Park made a phone call.

"_Frau Doktor Mueller, bitte._ _Ist__ Doktor Park_."

* * *

"Kim, listen to me. The last time we talked, you were really high on some powerful painkillers. Doctor Mueller told me that you believed that Vasilii was dead and that you were on the verge of going schizoid. I convinced her to log your psych issues down as an adverse reaction to the medication." 

Dr. Park stared down at Kim.

"However, you and I know that what you went though was not just some adverse reaction to the medication. No bull shit, but you have issues. We all have issues, but now you don't have the luxury of ignoring those issues.. Now that you are off the drugs, I need you to work with me for the sake of your child. I need you to be honest with me or I can not help you."

Kim wondered at what part of the Twilight Zone she woke up in this morning. The only thing that seemed real was her daughter laying on her sore breasts. However, Dr. Park was offering her a life rope and she had to grab it.

"I got you discharged under two conditions. One, you will stay with the Schlosser's. They are not happy with you because of the _incident_, but I got them to go alone because of Melody. You will not leave the house alone. You will not be left alone. I am sorry for the restrictions, but it's the only way you will get out of here. If you are left in a hospital too long, you become acclimatized to the hospital and that is a recipe for being committed for the rest of your life. Your daughter needs you to raise her, not to grow up trying to hide the fact that you are locked up in some mental institution. Also you will see Doctor Mueller once a week on an outpatient basis, Freda Schlosser will take you.

"Two, I will shrink your head at least twice a week, often on short notice. There is a war with France and the combat psych cases are pouring in so I can not schedule set sessions as a civilian doc does, so I have to cram in your sessions in the time normally allotted for sleep. With a newborn, I doubt that you will get much sleep anyways for the next couple months."

Kim shook her head. She could not return back to the place where she poisoned and killed Ron. She could not return and face the Schlosser's. However, there was no place left to go.

"I can't...I killed Ron."

Dr. Park shook his head, "You almost killed him. He nearly died of an overdose of painkillers. We did not know where you were. You broke his spirit and he almost committed suicide because he had nothing left. I had to get his CO, commanding officer, to keep him busy training his platoon so that he had no time to reflect on all the shit that life piled on top of him. Now he is in France commanding a company in the middle of a war. He has something inside of him that prevents him from abandoning those who depend on him. It is that something that prevented him from abandoning you when you were risking both your necks to save the world. He can not abandon the 100 men that depend on him.

"However, there is an after the war. The military will break up his ad hoc company. He can not ignore the issues haunting him forever. He won't have that something preventing him from eating a bullet. He needs you. He needs Melody. He needs someone that will be by his side for the rest of his life, not to judge him or fly off the handle at the smallest provocation. He does not need someone to head shrink him – That is a job best left to detach professionals such as myself. He needs someone to accept and more importantly love him. Otherwise, should he lose you and Melody...Best case then, he rapidly descends into madness and is committed for the rest of his life. Worse case, he eats a bullet after lashing out against the world. You are going to hold his life in your hand. He is on the edge just as you are on the edge.

"Normally this goes against all my training and experience...putting two unstable people together, but fate already did that. Kim, you came this close to being locked away in a psych ward for the rest of your life. Your daughter needs you. Vasilii needs you. You are the linchpin that is holding three lives together. You spent your youth saving the world. Now you have to save your family."

There was too much for Kim to think things through rationally. However, if she didn't...She would do it. She had messed things up so badly. She had to do it or she could not face her daughter.

_Mommy, why did daddy kill himself?_

Kim did not want to answer that question.

"Dr. Park, tell me what do I need to do."

* * *

Ron Stoppable grunted as the corpsman finished stitching the cut on his arm. 

"Sir, that was bullet fragment. You should go to the rear."

Ron shook his head, "I can't go back. We got a war to win."

_I have nothing to go back to._

It was 1842 and the operation to clear the island in the middle of Chateau Thierry was accomplished exactly one hour and five minutes ago. All that Ron's company was waiting for were the combat engineers to finish building the pontoon bridge and to be relieved by a platoon of army reservists. It took twelve lives and eight more men would never fight again.

_I failed._

Ron watched as the army engineers finished placing the last of the pontoon sections of the bridge. His men had the few prisoners they captured ready to move out. He knew that they did not have any valuable information, yet a part of him wanted to make them pay for the deaths of his men with pain. However, to do so would mean cheapening the memory of those that died.

"Sir, Second Lieutenant Gideon, US Army Corps of Engineers. I am here to relieve your company, sir."

Ron felt his anger erupt at the lieutenant. His men were wearing clean BDU's, wore spit shined boots, and looked like they came off a parade ground. Ron slapped down the lieutenant's hands.

"You don't ever salute in the field, boy. Before they gave me a bar, I lived to put a bullet in an officer's head at three hundred meters and in his chest at a thousand. Here, you don't salute. You don't wear any rank insignia. You don't even wear a clean uniform, because those are the things someone such as I look for when picking a target to pick off. Thank you lieutenant and keep an eye out for snipers. Nasty vermin. I picked off a couple myself, but we lost a total of eighteen men."

Ron's men had cleared the island, but Ron saw no point in letting the lieutenant have an easy time on garrison duty. There was no way he would let some snot-nosed replacement have a _vacation_ on an _island paradise_ that his men died to grab. No effing way. The lieutenant's eyes opened and he immediately called over his platoon sergeant to start relieving Ron's troops.

Ron walked away.

"Sir, thank you," muttered Lieutenant Reyes, his executive officer.

"I shouldn't have, but I could not stand the thought of those reservists living it up enjoying the good life on our island."

"Where to next."

"Paris, Reyes. We all are heading to the City of Lights so we can all go back home to our loved ones. Tell everyone that we are going to hold a quick goodbye to our dead and then we go back to the war."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Ron knew that the fight was going to be getting nastier as they pushed towards Paris. He wonders how many more _goodbyes_ would he have to witness.


End file.
